If Running's a Plan
by FestiveFerret88
Summary: "We need you in New York, Agent Romanoff. I have a new assignment for you. Just sent the briefing through." Fury hung up abruptly. He was never one for small talk. Natasha stretched her ankle out, frowning when a few of the cuts beaded up with fresh blood. Picking up her phone again she opened the briefing and flipped through it. Her frown deepened. "Bozhe moi."
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:**

 **I seemed to be one of the minority that liked Natasha/Bruce in AoU. I really like Natasha as a character and I don't like it when people just use her as the cold-hearted, robotic assassin. This story is one of the ways you could get from the Natasha in Avengers to the Natasha in AoU.**

 **Thank you to the incomparable Deejaymil for the beautiful cover. If you like words, you'll like her words so go check them out!**

* * *

 **Chapter One:**

She would care more about the knife to her neck if she hadn't just put her foot through a plate glass window. Without her tac suit on, she was pretty sure her ankle was going to be all kinds of shredded when she got a chance to check. Of course knife-to-the-neck guy was making that pretty difficult.

Natasha slammed her elbow up suddenly and with immense force, flinging the knife from the goon's hand. One flip later and he was gasping on the floor, the wind knocked out of his chest. Whipping a gun out from the waistband of her jeans she took out two more henchmen rounding the corner and flicked a shock disc behind her to take out the last one. A solid kick to knife guy's face knocked him out cold leaving her surrounded by broken glass, dead or unconscious bad guys, and the smashed remains of what had been a very pretty and extremely convincing Bernini sculpture forgery. Full of explosives.

Not bad for a Monday morning.

Suddenly the quiet was broken by the buzz of her SHIELD phone vibrating against her leg. She pulled it out and switched it to speaker phone, sitting down heavily, the phone on the floor next to her. Fury's voice echoed through the room while she rolled up the shredded leg of her jeans to start pulling the glass out of her ankle.

"We need you in New York, Agent Romanoff. I have a new assignment for you."

"Well I hope it's more relaxing than this one," she quipped, throwing a blood-covered glass shard to the floor.

"Just sent the briefing through." Fury hung up abruptly. He was never one for small talk.

Natasha stretched her ankle out, frowning when a few of the cuts beaded up with fresh blood. Picking up her phone again she opened the briefing and flipped through it. Her frown deepened.

" _ _Bozhe moi.__ "

 **XXX**

It took Natasha longer than she'd care to admit to figure out the layout of Stark's new tower. Half the tower was still under construction and too many hallways were blocked off. After a little bit of wandering she found the elevators and asked JARVIS to take her to the level with Bruce Banner's lab. Before the door pinged open she took a deep breath and steeled herself for the awkward conversation to come.

Of course every conversation anyone had with Bruce Banner was awkward, but they hadn't really spoken much since the Helicarrier incident and she was pretty sure Fury hadn't warned him of what was about to happen. She fought side-by-side with the Hulk when the wormhole opened, but everything after that was a bit of a blur. Bruce had left as soon as Loki was gone, going back to the remains of Stark Tower with Tony to start work on the rebuild. He'd been ready to run again, Natasha had recognized panic in his eyes, but Tony, it seemed, had convinced him to stay.

It had been almost a year now since they'd all gone their separate ways and, besides Clint who she saw on a near daily basis, the only Avenger she had seen was Rogers. He was spending most of his time working for SHIELD and they'd done a few missions on the same team.

Thor was back in...space...or wherever he came from. Tony was in Germany "helping" Pepper with a new branch of Stark Industries and Bruce had stayed at the tower to oversee the last stages of construction and work on his research. Getting your own state-of-the-art lab in a billion dollar Superhero HQ/Playboy Mansion apparently had its perks.

And there was about to be one more perk, at least hopefully __he__ saw it that way.

The elevator reached his floor and opened on a sea of glass and computer screens. Up a wide flight of stairs was a smaller room encased in glass. Bruce's private office. Bruce was decked out in a white lab coat, his back to her, papers in piles all around him, poking a screen and then writing things down. She managed to walk all the way up behind him without him noticing her presence.

"Hey, Doc."

"Gah-!" He jumped about six feet in the air, dislodging papers and nearly tipping his chair over backwards. He spun around, first looking startled at the appearance of anyone in his office, and then twice as stunned when he realized who it was. "N-Natasha. Um. Hi?" He took his glasses off and started resetting the paper avalanche. "What are you doing here? Not, not that you're not allowed here, I just thought that you were, you know, in DC, doing, ah, secret spy..stuff..." he trailed off lamely.

Nat couldn't help but smile, enjoying watching him babble himself into a verbal corner, as usual. "I was. I have a new assignment."

"Oh. I see. Good. Here? At the tower?"

"Yup."

"Why do they need...?"

Natasha sighed, this was going to be the tough sell. "It's you."

"What?"

"My assignment. It's you."

"Me?" Bruce's body language started to tense up and close off.

"Yup. I'm your new bodyguard," she stated, deciding bluntness was the best policy.

"Bodyguard..." Bruce stared at her for a moment before breaking out in cold laughter. "Don't you think I'm the last person in the world who needs a bodyguard? I have a built in bodyguard, what on earth could happen to me that I'd need protecting."

"Well it's not really you I'll be protecting, Doc. My assignment is to keep you from, uh," she searched for the right word, "changing. It's to protect everyone else. It seems like you have it almost entirely under control, but getting hurt or scared can be the tipping point. My job is to stop that from happening in advance. If I keep you safe, you stay you."

"Well you could start by not creeping up on me and giving me a heart attack," he pulled off his glasses and looked at her. The corner of her mouth twitched up slightly, but she remained silent. "I'm not a SHIELD agent."

"No one said you were."

"But Fury sent you here?"

"Yes."

"And if I say no?"

Natasha smiled, her mind rocketing back to their first meeting. "I'll persuade you."

Bruce couldn't help but smile at that too. "Seriously though, they're throwing you between me and the bullet to stop the Other Guy from making a mess of Manhattan?"

"Basically, yes."

"Why now? It's been a year since the Chitauri with no, um, problems."

"That I'm not entirely sure about. It seems SHIELD has been keeping an eye on you. Perhaps there has been some chatter that got their backs up. That or Stark has been gone too long and they don't like the idea of you here alone." She shrugged. "I just go where they tell me to."

"Why you?"

Nat hesitated. Her stony exterior failed her briefly and she looked down at the ground. "They wanted someone with experience. Someone who would take it seriously, understand the transformation. Someone who wouldn't be so terrified they'd bail when things got __stressful__."

"So they sent you."

"Yes."

"Geez, Natasha, I tried to kill you, why would you want to work with me?"

"Actually __you__ never tried to kill me. The Big Guy tried to kill me once, yes, but he also fought beside me and saved my life more than once. I'd say we're even. And like I said, I go where they send me." She dropped her bag on the floor and sunk into a nearby chair, arching a brow. "Besides, if anyone should be motivated to keep the green guy under control it should be the gal he wanted to kill."

"That's not funny."

"Kinda is." But Bruce wouldn't shake the grim expression he'd adopted. "Look, Doc. It's my job and I'm damn good at it. Fury chose me to go, he's usually pretty good at that kind of thing. If you want me gone, you can take it up with him, but I am done fighting that guy on stuff like this. It's like trying to eat soup with a fork. A really angry, one-eyed, fork."

Bruce deflated into the chair opposite her, letting concern crease his brow. He spoke quietly. "I don't want to hurt you."

"I know." She spoke matter-of-factly.

"You really think I'm in danger here at the Tower?"

"After New York we've been plastered all over the media. There have been pictures of you and the Big Guy all over every news outlet from here to Sydney. People see power and they're going to want to take it. Yes, I think you're in danger and so does Fury. It also wouldn't hurt to have a SHIELD agent here to liaise with the rest of the Avengers Initiative. SHIELD wants to keep Stark as an asset and if Thor finds his way back and needs help, this is where he'll come. With Rogers and Barton in DC, it's a good idea for me to be here."

"Good idea...yeah.." Bruce stared at the floor, tapping his fingertips together and pondering. Natasha stayed quiet, letting him think it over. "You're being awfully open about all this. I'm surprised you didn't just come to stay, with some kind of cover story. Tony wouldn't have minded you moving in."

"It's a lot easier to protect someone if they know that's what you're doing. Besides, I was under the impression you didn't like being lied to." Her face was carefully blank, as usual, but she let her eyes warm a little, show him she wasn't angry or bitter.

He flinched at the memory, but ultimately sighed and leaned back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "Okay. Fine. So what does this entail? You wearing black sunglasses and an earpiece and standing behind me while I work? It's pretty boring most of the time."

She let a smile twitch at the corner of her mouth and reached into her bag. "Not exactly."She handed him a small black fob, with a large, stiff button in the middle. "This is your panic button. If you push it, I will come. No matter what, no ifs, ands or buts. You need help, you feel green around the gills, a guy looks at you funny? You push it, I'll come." She held up her wrist showing him the watch that would alert her to any button pushes. "Okay?"

"Okay." Bruce took the fob and looked it over. "What if it's a false alarm?"

"I don't care. You push it, I'll come."

"So if I think the Other Guy is going to make an appearance?"

"You push. I come." She pointed first at him, then at herself, over-enunciating the words as if to a child.

"That's not the direction you should be heading in." He looked pained at the thought.

"Well my hope is that you'll push it well before that and I can stop it from happening at all, but if it comes down to it I need to know so I can call in the team and try to get you contained. Deal?" She waited until he nodded and clipped the button to his belt loop. "Good. Other than that it's just a matter of me keeping an eye out, knowing your schedule. I'd appreciate it if you could give me a heads up when you're going out so I can scout the area ahead of time."

"I don't really, uh, do that," he said, blinking around at his lab like he was seeing it for the first time.

"Do what?"

"Leave."

She actually did laugh at that, rising gracefully out of her chair. "Well, it should make my job easy then, Doc." She lay a hand on his shoulder as she walked past and she felt him flinch.

At first she tried to give Bruce his privacy, only checking in on him once every other day or so. The truth was, Bruce did make her a little nervous. Their incident in the Helicarrier had been one of the most terrifying events in her very interesting life and she had no desire to repeat it. She came here because it was her job and she wasn't about to start turning down jobs because she was scared. She crossed her fingers and hoped Bruce wouldn't be showing off his "party trick" anytime soon.

She mostly stayed in her room and read or worked on some of her research-based projects for SHIELD. She texted back and forth a lot with Clint and, after a week of boredom, ultimately gave in and watched Stark's enormous TV. Finally she took to just wandering the halls, trying to memorize the layout of each new floor as it was completed.

The bottom half was now Stark Industries, all specialty R&D. After that you needed special Avengers clearance. Stark shared the lab with Bruce, but he also had a private workshop which was the first of the Avengers floors, with a large glass window overlooking the two floors below. He said it kept him connected to the business, but Natasha was pretty sure he just liked to watch the engineers playing around. It inspired him.

Above that was a massive three-story space that included a large gathering area (which Tony insisted on calling the "party room" and a quieter balcony above it with comfy chairs and couches. The highest of the three levels was a large lab that Bruce used for his research or shared with Tony when they were both there. Bruce had his private office off the main lab.

The Quinjet bay was only a few floors from the top and was still partially under construction. Nat wasn't really sure what was going in on the top few floors, perhaps Tony didn't even know yet, but there were always a number of workmen up there pointing at blueprints and frowning.

In her explorations she found a small theater, three kitchens that always seemed to be stocked, two gyms, a pool, a library and an enormous closet full of a variety of cleaning robots that JARVIS could summon to anywhere in the building.

Tony had hinted that there were better living quarters to come, but for now two of the floors had a bunch of simple suites in each one. Bedroom, bathroom, living space - plain and straightforward. Each floor had a big kitchen and rec room. The kitchens were stocked by JARVIS-ordered deliveries that she never seemed to see or hear. She chose a room on the same floor as Bruce's, but down the hall a ways, wanting to be nearby just in case, but not wanted to crowd his privacy too much.

She didn't go into Tony's private workshop and to be honest she wasn't sure what would happen if she tried. Stark was the kind of guy where it seemed equally likely that he would leave the workshop totally open, lock it completely, or leave it open but fill it with booby traps. She didn't really want to find out which.

One evening, about a week after arriving she wandered down to the kitchen for some dinner and ran into Bruce. He had his sleeves rolled up and was standing, back to her, chopping something on the counter. He hummed softly to himself while he worked.

"Hey, Doc," she said softly, not wanting to surprise him. He stopped chopping and turned to look at her.

"Hi, Natasha. What are you up to?"

"Oh, I was just looking for something to eat. I'll just grab some toast or something." She pulled open the fridge and started rummaging.

"If you don't mind waiting you're welcome to share this." He gestured at his chopping.

"You cook?" Natasha asked, pulling a juice box out of the fridge and sticking a straw in it.

"Yeah...I mean, I'm not, like, good or anything...I just. Make food." He shrugged.

"Sure," Natasha said, sitting down at the kitchen table.

"What?" Bruce looked kinda lost standing there with a knife, dripping tomato on the floor.

"Yes, please." Natasha's lip quirked up into a smile around her straw. "I'd love some."

"Oh. Well good. It'll just be a little longer."

"No rush. Do you mind if I hang out?"

"Not at all." He turned back to his tomatoes. They stayed in silence for a while, Bruce bustling about the kitchen, turning on the burner and adding things to a pan until the lovely smell of cooking tomatoes and spices filled the air. With the food to focus on, Bruce relaxed more than usual and Natasha was able to get a look at the real him. He carried the Hulk around with him like a weight on his shoulders, it was interesting to see how tall he could stand when he set it down for a moment.

After the last few weeks her fear of him had abated somewhat – it was so hard to remember to be afraid when faced with this mumbling, shy, goofy, __nerd__.

About twenty minutes later Bruce pushed a plate across the table to her. It had rice and a strong – but delicious – smelling spinach and tomato curry.

"I hope you don't mind curry," he said. "I pretty much did all my learning how to cook in India."

"It looks great, thanks." She accepted a glass of wine from him as well and they sat down together. Without the cooking to focus on he shifted back into awkwardness and fiddled with his fork "So why India, anyway?" She asked, trying to break the unpleasant silence.

"I don't really know. I guess I thought I could be helpful. It's also easy to stay out of big cities if you want to. I just wanted to focus on something...new."

"You know I never thanked you," Natasha said.

"For what?"

"For coming back. Last year. For fighting with us. I know it wasn't easy for you."

"I wish it had been, but you're right, it wasn't. I almost didn't...I'm glad I did, though."

"I'm pretty sure Stark is too." That got a quiet chuckle out of him.

Two glasses of wine and a second plate of curry in each of them and they both relaxed a little more. Natasha told him a few of her tamer stories of life in the field, and he tried to explain what he was working on to her. Nat considered herself pretty damn smart, but she wasn't even sure half of what he said was real words.

At a break in the conversation Bruce leaned back and looked at her thoughtfully. Finally, he pulled his panic button off his belt and put it on the table. She was relieved to see he was carrying it around with him all the time.

"So what happens if I push it?"

"I'll come," she said automatically.

"No, I mean how do you know where I am?"

"Push it," she said nodding to the little button. He raised an eyebrow at her and she nodded again. He picked it up again and pushed the button. Immediately the watch around her wrist started buzzing against her wrist. She reached out and pressed it against his arm for a moment so he could feel it. With the touch of a button a map appeared on the screen and she was able to zoom in and out, two tiny dots overlaid on top of each other – green for Bruce, red for her.

"Why doesn't it make a noise or something?" he asked, holding her wrist and poking at the watch, playing with the screen like a kid with a new game system.

"In case I'm in a stealth situation," she answered frankly. "This way only I know it's going off. Don't worry I won't miss it, it's pretty hard to ignore."

"I'm not. Worried, I mean."

"Good."

"I was just curious. What it was like at your end."

"Yeah, well next time you can be the spy and I'll be the scientist," she joked. "Of course I'll probably end up blowing something up."

"That's okay, it'll be just like having Stark home." They both laughed. She felt warm and more relaxed than she should have while on a mission. She stood up and cleared both plates into the dishwasher, following up with the cutting boards and knives Bruce had used. He put the leftovers in a container and tucked them in the fridge. For a moment they both just stood awkwardly in the kitchen, not sure what to do next.

"Well, I should probably..." Banner gestured vaguely towards his lab.

"Of course. I have to call in a report anyway. They'll know the button was pushed and if I don't report in within a few hours this place will be swarmed with helicopters."

"Oh. Yes. Well, you'd better do that then."

"Night, Doc."

"Goodnight Natasha."

She slid out of the kitchen feeling his eyes on the back of her neck as she walked down the hall back to her room. She sent in a quick report and then lay back on her bed. She felt the heat of the wine flush her cheeks. She had a very high tolerance for alcohol – she was Russian after all – but the spices in the curry and the relaxed chatter had exaggerated its effect and she was feeling ready to drift off to sleep.

Forcing herself to get up and change into her pyjamas she curled back under the blankets wondering if being stuck at the Tower was going to be that bad after all.

 **XXX**

The next night around 6 o'clock her phone binged with a text and she pulled it out. It was from Bruce.

 _ _Hungry?__

She put down her book and smiled. She made her way back down to the nearest kitchen and found Bruce up to his elbows in cooking again. Pasta this time.

The conversation came more easily this time and before long they were laughing and joking. Natasha found herself getting a little flirty, as she often did, and she enjoyed the stammer she could get out of Bruce when she did.

The threat of the Other Guy drifted away for her and she started to forget sometimes that this was an assignment. She'd gone this long, and longer, without excitement before, but she'd been constantly deep in the action for a while and despite a natural propensity for danger, it felt kinda nice to relax.

After that night, dinner became a regular thing. Nat started bringing her book to Bruce's lab in the afternoon so she could follow him down to the kitchen when they got hungry. She'd show up earlier and earlier and he always seemed happy to see her. She found him nice to be around, he was quiet and surprisingly funny.

She even found herself hoping she'd be able to earn his trust eventually. He still had this way of flinching away from her when she walked by too close or leaned over him to grab something.

Sometimes he would bounce ideas off her, talking out problems in his research often with a lot of arm waving and creased eyebrows. She would half-listen commenting with a Steve-esque, "I understood that reference," the rare time she heard a technical term she understood to remind him not to expect much help from her.

Life in the tower became comfortable and quiet, shrunk down to just the two of them, on the one floor of their giant tower in a giant city.

They continued to eat dinner together every night and Natasha started spending most of every day sitting in the corner of Bruce's lab, reading or typing on her laptop. The corner slowly shifted more and more into her space until she'd built a mini-zone just for her. Bruce didn't seem to mind at all, in fact he seemed to be shifting things around to make more room for her things.

One day she was curled up in her chair, shoes off and feet tucked under her when a series of impressive expletives came from under the fume hood.

"Are you okay?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "I didn't even know you knew some of those words."

"I'm fine, it's just this fucking- damnit..I- DAMNIT." There was a slight __foof__ from between Bruce's hands and he pushed his chair back, clenching his fists.

"Bruce?" she was more serious now. "Are you okay?" He looked up and his eyes widened when he saw she was standing poised to move, book discarded on the floor.

"Sorry, I'm sorry. I'm fine. It's not..it's not real, I'm just...frustrated." He took his arm and swept it across the table, pushing everything into the bin with a "Hazardous Waste" warning on the side. A cleaning robot zipped out of a cupboard, picked up the bin and zoomed off. "Overzealous little bastard." He pouted, tapping his foot against the edge of the table. "Sometimes it feels like working at the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. We'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"It's nothing, it's stupid. I've just been working on this for a while and it turns out it's not going to work." He ran a hand tensely along his neck and up through his hair.

"Oh, sorry." She wracked her brain, trying to remember what he'd been telling her about. "The thing with the..uhh..." she moved her hand in the shape she was trying to recreate – he'd shown her pictures. "The little honeycomb particles?"

He laughed at her description. "Yeah, that's the one."

"Sorry," she repeated.

"Oh, well. I'll find another way."

"Wanna go kick the crap out of something?"

"What?"

"You know, go workout, vent the frustrations, hit something. It always works for me."

"Oh. I don't really do that. I was never taught...I mean I run, it's good for my heart rate control, but I don't really, uh, hit things."

"Wanna learn?"

He blanched. "Is that really such a good idea?" he asked quietly.

"Of course it is. Trust me, you'll feel better. It'll make you less angry, not more. Plus, if you're good, I'll teach you some more swear words." She couldn't help but slip a little innuendo into her voice, enjoying the red flush that worked its way up the back of his neck.

"If you think it's okay..."

"C'mon." She left her shoes by the chair and grabbed Bruce's sleeve, pulling him down the hall after her. At the door to his room she let go. "Put on some sweats and meet me in the gym in five minutes."

She was already in stretchy clothes so she went straight to the gym to warm up. Tony's gym was amazing and had everything – she wasn't even sure what some of the stuff did. One whole wall was entirely mirrors and there was even a barre. She ran her hand along the barre, a thousand memories bombarding her. She hadn't danced in years, but muscle memory took over and she found herself rising up on her toes and lifting her hand up.

She ran quickly through a handful of warmups and stretches and then, since Bruce still hadn't arrived, she asked JARVIS to put on the music to an old favourite solo of hers. It was light, dreamy and slow. She couldn't remember the whole thing but she slid in and out of the parts she did know, improvising when her memory failed her. She enjoyed the light pain in the joints and muscles she didn't use for her normal workouts, pressing into the stretches and pointing her bare toes. She heard Bruce slip in, but she didn't stop and he waited quietly, watching.

She floated through the rest of the routine and finished with her nose pressed to her calf, one leg pointed high in the air and one flat on the floor as the music drifted to a close. Reaching out she put her hands flat in front of her and rolled into an easy handstand, chuckling. Not exactly a "classical" finish.

"Wow, that was amazing," Bruce said from his spot near the door. "I hope that's not what you're planning to teach me cause I'm pretty sure my body won't do any of that."

Natasha laughed and bounced over to him. She was feeling good and the unusual exercise had given her a slight rush that she usually had to work out for hours to get. "Don't worry, you get to do something a lot more fun!"

She started out showing him how to stand, how to find his balance and how to brace himself. When he was ready she grabbed the pads and stood in front of him, padded hand held out. "Okay hit me."

"What?"

"I wanna see what we're working with. Hit me."

"Uhhh..."

"Really? Please don't tell me you're uncomfortable hitting a girl."

"It's more that I'm uncomfortable hitting anyone, actually." He shuffled from foot to foot.

"Come on, Doc. Don't you want to feel more in control? Right now, if you get threatened in the slightest, the Big Guy shows up. Maybe, if you could fight back a bit, protect yourself, he wouldn't feel the need to protect you." He looked a little softened, but his eyebrows were still pinched together."I'm not trying to turn you into a soldier," she added quietly. His eyebrows moved from pinched to surprised and she saw she'd touched a nerve.

Seeing the determination in her eyes he nodded and braced himself. "Okay, fine."

It turned out that he wasn't that bad really. They spent the next hour working on his form and by the end he had a pretty formidable right hook. She'd still be able to drop him in a second – a fact she reminded him of regularly – but his confidence had grown even in just the one session.

They kept it up and one surprising result of their sparring sessions was that Bruce instantly seemed more comfortable around her. He no longer flinched away constantly, though he still had a personal bubble the size of Texas.

A few weeks later Natasha expressed an interest in helping in the kitchen and Bruce set to work teaching her how to cook.

Nat was a very fast learner, but she struggled with the freedom and fluidity of cooking. Sometimes Bruce would change his mind halfway through something and go in another direction and she found it frustrating. Soon though she began to see the fun in experimenting and she starting mixing up herbs and spices in new and exciting ways and making him try them.

"It's kinda like mixing explosives," she said, coming into his office one day and holding out a bowl with a new spice mix in it. "You kinda know what you're going for, but the result can still really surprise you."

"Hmm, that's encouraging." He raised an eyebrow at her doubtfully, but dipped a finger in and tasted it. "Wow, that's really hot-" he coughed a little, "-...but nice."

"Have you ever eaten something so spicy you turned green?" Natasha asked cheekily, sliding into his comfort zone. He gave the redhead an exasperated look he saved for when she wasn't taking his 'condition' seriously enough. By now she'd learned just to ignore it.

"Umm, hi?" said a small voice from the doorway and they both turned to look. A tall girl with purple hair and a lip ring, holding a stack of folders was standing nervously by the door, looking pointedly at the floor.

Bruce suddenly realized how close they had been standing, leaning towards each other over the spice bowl and he stumbled backwards, bumping into his desk. Nat couldn't help but smile, he was such a dork sometimes. She set the bowl down and walked over to the newcomer. She was wearing a SHIELD badge and a terrified look.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Lillian Banks? From accounting at SHIELD? I'm new?" she added, as if that wasn't obvious. "I'm supposed to, uh, do some expense reports, surveys of the new building?"

"Oh." Nat must have dozed off during that briefing. "I thought Stark was paying for all this."

"Oh, yes, well he is? But as a donation to SHIELD in some parts...sooo...I have to..uhh. Do this." She indicated the folders. "I didn't mean to interrupt...anything." Natasha wasn't sure who was blushing more, the girl, or Bruce. She decided to put them both out of their misery.

"Not a problem. I was absolutely expecting you. Just let me know what you need to see." She gestured for the girl to lead the way out of the lab and towards the elevator. She fumbled with her folders, pulling out a list of numbers to acquire and starting rattling things off to Natasha. As the elevator doors closed Nat looked up and saw Bruce turn back to what she thought of as his "chemistry set". She was pretty sure it had a more technical name, but he was always doing things that looked like a scene from Great Mouse Detective with beakers and strange chemicals and Bunsen burners. She liked the idea of him as a kid doing the same with a set bought out of the back of a comic book.

What Agent Banks needed to see was fairly straight-forward but it did take some time and some of the info was hard to find. They hit the upper floors that weren't done yet and she chatted with the workmen about some of the future plans.

Natasha found herself mostly useless except as a table when the girl started handing her files, looking for a particular one buried deep in the stack. Arms full of papers, Natasha let the chatter turn to noise as her mind wandered off into space.

And that's when her watch went off.

The second the buzzing started Natasha dropped the folders on the floor and started racing down the hall. She heard the accountant calling after her, but she slid into the elevator JARVIS had called without pausing. Rocketing down 17 floors she pulled her guns and checked the ammo.

The lab was quiet and empty but a groan from up the stairs drew her swiftly into Bruce's office. The second her feet crossed the threshold she hit the brakes.

"B-Bruce?" She tried and failed to keep the stammer out of her voice. He was leaning forward over the table, gripping the metal so hard it had bent. There was a slight green tinge to his skin and a terrifying depth to the grunts that came with every breath. He didn't speak but a slight incline of his head acknowledged her presence.

Skirting along the wall to his right slowly and cautiously, Natasha noticed a pile of broken glass under the table and a slow __drip, drip__ of blood coming from Bruce's right hand. Willing her legs to stay upright and her breathing quiet she inched her way across the room towards the table. "Bruce?" she asked again, quieter but more stable.

He looked up at her and she saw the pain and fear in his shifting green eyes. "It's okay, Bruce, you're hurt, but you're okay. You're going to be fine. Just breathe. Just breathe." Natasha repeated those words like a mantra, each tiny step bringing her closer to him.

Turning away from her, a low growl tore out of his throat and he gripped the table harder, mangling the metal edge. Her hand shaking Natasha shifted closer, desperate to get him to release his right hand and stop the metal from digging in and making the wound worse, adding more pain to fuel his transformation. "Bruce," her voice was pleading and needy, as she struggled to keep herself in the present, memories of watching him shift on the Helicarrier floor threatening to surface.

She desperately wanted to remove his hurt hand from the table. Not knowing what else to do, she reached out and placed two of her fingers shakily on his arm, her thumb tucked under, trying to make it look as least like a fist as possible. The second her skin touched his he let out a long shuddering breath and ducked his head lower.

His breathing sounded a little quieter, his grip a little softer so she kept going, sliding her fingers slowly up his forearm and back down. They seemed hung in the moment, Bruce on the edge of the Hulk and Natasha, one hand braced against the wall, her back to the table, arm stretched long to reach his, tracing his pulse with her hand, willing it to slow.

Finally, it seemed he was coming down, breathing slowing, a normal hue returning to his skin. Finishing a line down his arm, Natasha kept going, sliding her fingers right across the top of his hand until her hand was resting on his. His grip finally released and he staggered backwards, sinking into a chair, his good hand coming up to cover his face.

Natasha let out a long, shaky breath, finally letting herself sink down onto her knees, taking a moment to calm her racing heart and gain control again. She kept his hand clutched in hers almost as a reflex and when she looked up she realized he was bleeding still.

She grabbed a clean towel from a bin by the desk and was about to press it against the wound but stopped, hesitating.

"It's okay," he whispered, his voice hoarse, and she met his now brown gaze. "I'm okay now."

When she didn't move he brought his other hand over to press the towel against the gash. Snapped back to herself she started moving again, gently pushing his good hand away and wrapping the towel tight beneath his fingers. "Sorry. I didn't want to hurt you."

"I'm okay," he repeated.

"What happened?"

"I was trying to test the validity- I just, um, I was measuring." He gave up on the lengthy explanation. Two dark circles had appeared under his eyes. "The beaker broke, cut me up pretty bad."

"I can see that." She grabbed a first aid kit from the corner and set back to work patching him up.

"I couldn't..." He trailed off.

"You pushed your button." She stopped her movements and looked up at him.

"Yeah..."

"Thanks."

"You're thanking me?" He chuckled. "You always get things so backwards Natasha. I don't think I'll ever understand you."

She smiled too. "Yeah, I get that a lot." She went back to bandaging his hand. The cut was pretty deep and she thought he probably should have stitches, but she was pretty sure her hands were too shaky for that. "Soo, I thought you said you had pointy things under control."

"Pointy, yes. Gushing blood, not so much."

"I see. So it wasn't the spices then?" That finally got her a cautious chuckle. All was quiet for a moment.

"How- how did you do that?" he finally asked. She just stared at his arm and shrugged. "Nothing has ever brought me back when I was that close." He met her eyes and they just looked at each other for a moment. Pulling her eyes away from his she brought them back to his arm.

"I just..." She reached out and gently touched him with her fingertips, right at the pulse point on his wrist. He didn't flinch away, but he froze, as still as stone. They hung there for a moment in silence.

Breaking the spell, Natasha leaned back and starting cleaning up the first aid kit, tucking everything back in its spot. Bruce reached out and grabbed her upper arm, waiting until she looked him in the eyes. "Natasha...thank you."

"Always," she replied. "You push it, I'll come."

He just nodded, giving her arm another gentle squeeze before sliding back into his chair and closing his eyes with a sigh. "I'm exhausted. I'm going to go lie down for a bit. You okay?"

"I'm fine. You go." She helped him up out of his chair. "I'll clean up and put in a report."

JARVIS sent one of Tony's cleaning robots to clean up the glass and blood while Natasha put away the rest of the supplies. She hit the lights as she walked out and headed straight for her room. She asked JARVIS to let the SHIELD agent know what had happened. A few moments later the AI let her know that Agent Banks had everything she needed and had left.

She pulled out her tablet ready to call in and make a report, but as the adrenaline had finally worn off and she just found herself utterly exhausted. Stripping off her blood and sweat stained clothes she climbed into a hot shower and let the steam wash the past hour away. Her mind wandered back to his strangled groan, his tense shoulders rippling as they threatened to turn green and she couldn't help but imagine what could have happened if she hadn't stopped him. With no Thor there to distract him, he would have ripped her apart, ripped the tower apart. For the second time in as many years she had been sure she was going to die at the hands of an ally and all because of a bit of broken glass... A tiny, strangled sob wiggled it's way out of her chest but she shoved it back in, gritting her teeth and turning the water to cold.

A few minutes later, clean and dressed in fresh clothes, she sent in her report to Fury:

Banner button push at 15:00.  
Accidental wound triggering Hulk response.  
Code Green Averted.

 **XXX**

The next morning Natasha found Bruce in the kitchen, wrestling with a jug of milk. His bandaged hand was making it hard to get a good grip and he finally sighed and gave up, setting it back on the counter. She came over and took it from him, popping the top off and pouring it on his cereal. He sighed again and grabbed a spoon. She popped some toast in the toaster.

After eating in silence for a while Bruce waved his spoon in her direction. "Helen is coming by later. She said she'd patch me up."

"Oh. Good." Nat tried to summon some enthusiasm, but there was something about Helen Cho that rubbed her the wrong way. Cho was one of those people who acted like she'd known someone for years only moments after she'd met them and irritated Natasha to no end. Not to mention Bruce seemed to have a wild crush on the woman and the stammering and awkwardness always reached unbearable levels in mere moments. As soon as she showed up the two of them would start with the science talk and Nat would go back to being the outsider she usually was. She'd kinda of gotten used to being on the inside here.

She made an excuse to slip out and decided to go for a run instead of hanging around the tower. When she got back, Dr. Cho was in Banner's lab. She had his hand out and un-bandaged and was repairing it with some kind of laser suture.

Nat stuck her head in to see how it was going. "Hi Doctor Cho," she said, giving her a stiff wave. "Bruce back in one piece?"

"Oh hello. Not just yet but he will be." She smiled at Bruce and he smiled back. Nat felt an unfamiliar twinge in her stomach.

"Hey, Natasha." Bruce turned to her. "We're going to go out to dinner later. Is there anything you have to do? Clear the area or something?"

The twinge turned into a lump of rock and settled in her stomach to stay. "No, that's fine," she said shortly. "Just text me the name of the place and bring your button."

"You know you're welcome to come," Helen said politely.

"Thanks, but I have a lot to do," she said, more curtly than she intended. Bruce looked a little surprised, but she turned and walked out before she could say anything else mean. Helen was always perfectly nice, but Nat just couldn't hide her irritation. For someone who prided herself on revealing no emotion, it was beyond frustrating when she struggled with it.

She killed the next few hours watching TV and doing nothing and when her phone finally buzzed with Bruce's restaurant text she sighed and dialed Clint.

"Hey Babe, what's up?" he answered. She could hear the tell-tale twing of his bow in the background and distant sounds of gunfire.

"You busy?" she asked.

"Nah. Just doing some recon with the Cap. I only need one ear, go ahead."

"I wasn't calling for anything specific. Just bored."

"What're you and Banner making for dinner this time? Did you learn to make beer yet?"

"We're not making beer, you ass. Besides I'm alone tonight." She paused. "He went out with Dr. Cho."

"Oooh." Clint laughed. "Who's the green monster now?"

"I'm not jealous."

"Sure you are. Your boyfriend's got a date with the doctor lady. Of course you're jealous." His tone was teasing but it pissed her off anyway.

"He's my assignment, Clint. I just don't like her. I always feel left out with those two – they only speak scientist."

"Hate to break it to you, Babe, but that's jealousy."

"Banner is my assignment," she repeated.

"You don't have to be all mushy about someone to get jealous, Nat. You've been a terrible twosome for months now. You're keeping him safe – you've already proved you can – and now he ditched you for another. Revel in your jealousy. Own it. Give him some Black Widow sass-" There was a grunt and she heard the phone hit the ground. She heard some thumps and some distant swear words from Clint. She idly poked at her toenails while she waited for Clint to come back, wondering if she was bored enough to paint them.

A final thump, followed by footsteps and then Clint's voice came back on the line. "-It'll make you feel better.."

"Nah. I think I'll just leave them alone until she goes. Maybe I'll go out in New York more. I'm probably getting cabin fever in here. I've forgotten what the real world is like."

"From where I'm standing the real world kinda sucks. Plus it's really cold."

"Maybe you should get some sleeves then, Hero. Where are you, anyway?"

She could feel him shrug over the phone. "Somewhere cold?"

"I should go, let you get back to shooting things. Say hi to the Cap for me."

"Okay, talk to you later, Babe."

"Night." She hung up and tossed the phone away. Maybe, just maybe, Clint was a tiny bit on to something. They finally had this whole stuck-at-the-tower-together thing sorted out. Yesterday seemed...important...somehow, but he'd pointedly ignored talking about it in the morning and now he was waltzing off with his scientist girlfriend and leaving her here. She had read his files and for someone who had spent as long as he had trying to find a cure or control for his transformation, he was awfully uninterested in the fact that she'd brought him back from the edge so easily. What if there was something there? Something they could use?

Well, at least she hadn't said yes to dinner with them. As a spy Natasha had to deal with a lot of uncomfortable situations, but third wheeling it with Cho and Banner was painfully awkward. She was a little jealous and a little pissed at Bruce. Those feelings were so odd and domestic for her, it just made her feel even more uncomfortable.

She spent the rest of the night eating junk food and making a mess of her room. JARVIS had located some nail polish jars that Stark had been using for a bizarre experiment and she spent an embarrassingly long time painting a different pattern on each toenail. She knew her hair was sticking up from her run and her clothes were sweaty, but she didn't bother changing.

Bruce arrived back at the tower earlier than she expected and she was more than a little startled when he stuck his head in her room. He took in the mess and her crumpled appearance. "You okay?" he asked.

"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine." He looked so concerned she couldn't help but give him a reassuring smile and his whole body relaxed.

He fidgeted for a bit, not looking at her. "I was worried you might be freaked out from yesterday. I honestly thought you'd ask to leave."

"What? Why?"

"I almost killed you. Again." His voice was flat, but she could feel the strain in it.

"But you didn't. That's why I'm here. To prevent the Big Guy from making a guest appearance."

He gave her an exasperated look. "I thought it was more to stop people from shooting at me, or trying to blow up the tower, not to grab me while I'm halfway to green!"

"It worked, didn't it?"

"That's not the point." He ran a tired hand across his face.

"You pushed your button," she reminded him.

He sighed, finally looking her in the eye, then shrugged. "I said I would."

"Then it seems like Fury was right. It works. You push it, I come, Code Green Averted, everyone keeps their arms firmly attached to their bodies." She gave him a stern look and repeated, "That's why I'm here."

His body deflated as he gave up the fight. "Okay, fine." His grimace morphed into a tentative smile. "Thank you?"

"Anytime. But I'd prefer not anytime soon." Her voice was gently mocking and he rolled his eyes. Suddenly she wanted to change the subject. "Where's Doctor Cho?"

"Oh, her plane just left."

"Really, I thought she was going to stay."

"Nah." He shook his head and twizzled his hands together. "I mean, she offered, but I knew she was busy so I said... you could take care of me." He paused. "...right?"

He looked truly nervous that she might say no and Nat couldn't help but smile again, her frustration from earlier vanishing. "Of course."

"I got the impression you two don't, uh, really get along that well," he stuttered out.

Natasha opened her mouth to correct him, but realized it was silly to protest. She hadn't exactly been subtle. "It's nothing. It's my fault. She's smarter than me, you know how it is. Well, I guess you don't actually." She smiled to herself. "I'm sorry. I was rude."

"No, no. It's okay. This is your home too. If you don't like her..."

"Don't be silly, Doc. I'm just having a bad day. She can come anytime. I'll be nicer next time. I promise."

"Are you sure?"

"100 percent."

"Okay." He leaned against the door frame. "I mean she probably won't come back until one of us needs medical care again, which will hopefully not be for a while. She helped me with the project I got stuck on though." He remembered her earlier description and added with a small smile, "The one with the honeycomb particles."

"That's good." Natasha was pleased to hear a genuine inflection in her voice.

"I'll show you tomorrow. It's really cool."

"That'd be great." She smiled at him warmly and he looked around at the odd collection of chip packets and nail polish colours.

"Sooo, dessert?" he asked, "JARVIS says we have Oreos and ice cream." He paused, looking pointedly at the mess. "I didn't know you'd already eaten most of the junk cupboard."

"Like I said, bad day. Lead the way to the dessert, or risk life and limb."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Natasha pushed the polish bottles aside and leaped up, following Bruce down the hall as he described the latest idea he had had in great detail, drawing incomprehensible chemical diagrams in the air with his fingers.

 _ _It's your home too__. She couldn't shake those words. The tower wasn't really her home, it was just home base for this assignment. But it was nice that Bruce thought that. That he was willing to share his home with her.

 _ _It's your home too.__ It would actually be kinda nice if that were true.

 **XXX**

The next few months kind of drifted by. Bruce had no more beaker accidents and Natasha started to relax again. Every few days she would drag Bruce to the gym and make him practice basic self-defense. He progressed pretty quickly and soon they were working on gentle sparring. They didn't talk about that day in the lab, but his personal bubble seemed to get a little smaller. She found him occasionally leaning over her to see what book she was reading, or poke her in the shoulder when she sassed him too much.

His work seemed to be moving along nicely too, until, suddenly, it wasn't. She heard some grumbling from the other side of a large, complicated hologram and finally, "shit!". He immediately marched out of the office, leaving her sitting alone in her chair in shock. She was just about to get up and find out where he had gone when he reappeared in sweats and a t-shirt and raised his eyebrows at her questioningly. She smiled and bounced down to the gym after him.

They hit things, and each other, until he was feeling calmer. Once he was exhausted he sat on the edge of a large and complicated looking weight machine and talked his way through his problem. Natasha still had plenty of energy left so while he talked she danced – or rather she invented a silly combination of formal ballet, gymnastics and her particular form of martial arts. Every now and then a spin or a series of flips would render Bruce speechless, but when she stopped and looked at him questioningly he would dive back into his chemical combinations and newly discovered elements.

Over an hour later he seemed to have some to some sort of tentative conclusion and she was feeling her workout a little. She flipped her way back over to the edge of the gym, landing on her feet right in front of the scientist.

"You are disturbingly agile," he said, a little in awe.

"Well thank god I'm a super spy then, I'd make a terrible accountant. How about you Mr. Disturbingly Smart? Got it all figured out?"

"Hmm? Oh yeah, I think I have some ideas..but I'll have to-"

She cut him off before he could dive back in. "Go shower. I'll see you at the lab later. Takeout tonight?"

"Sure," he mumbled, but she could tell he wasn't really listening. his mind back in his lab. She ordered Chinese through JARVIS – a favourite of them both – and, when he adamantly refused to eat in his sterile lab, met him in the kitchen for a quiet dinner. He brought a tablet and pages and kept drawing things and then poking at screens on the tablet and looking excited.

She gave him the occasional encouraging smile, but mostly just let his voice wash over her, stuffing noodles in her mouth. She was feeling unusually sleepy, the comfy clothes she'd changed in after her shower not helping at keeping her awake. Eventually she decided to just give in and left Bruce to his test tubes while she curled into her bed, noticing with caution that it was very much starting to feel like __her bed__.

 **XXX**

The buzzing on her wrist rocketed her out of sleep faster than the most irritating alarm clock ever could. She had her feet in her shoes, her tac belt on, and was out the door and in the hall before the third long buzz had even finished. Her mind sped ahead of her, down the hall and around the corner, picturing the Hulk tearing through the walls. She strained her ears for his roar, something breaking, a scream, but the hallways were quiet save for her frantic footfalls.

At last she reached Bruce's door and quietly gave JARVIS the cue to slide it open. Gun drawn, heart in her throat she stepped around the corner.

When a very alive and non-green Bruce met her eyes she let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. He had one hand up in an "it's okay" gesture and the other pressed hard against the bed where he sat.

"I'm fine," he said, before she could ask, her eyes scanning the room for danger, her gun still at the ready. "It was nothing, it was, ah, a mistake. It was a night- I was just...dreaming."

Relieved that the room was clear, Natasha tucked her gun back in its holster and crouched in front of Bruce. He was breathing heavily and his heart was pounding, a sheen of sweat across his forehead but he seemed under control.

"A dream?" she echoed, getting him to finally tip his head back and look at her. Another relieved breath came out at the sight of two brown eyes, crinkled with stress, but clear and present.

"Yeah, um. I'm sorry, it was stupid. I was having- I was dreaming and I woke up thinking I was, you know, that, The Other Guy was on his way and I panicked so, I uh, I pushed the panic button." He held it up as if in explanation and she couldn't help but laugh a little in relief.

"Don't be sorry, Doc. That's what it's there for. You push it, I come. I'd rather have a hundred false alarms than have you not push it when something's really happening." She turned to sit next to him on the bed. The cool silence of the summer night and the dim lights made her feel bolder than usual and she rested two calming fingers on the pulse point on the inside of his wrist, like she had so many weeks ago in his lab, until his heart rate slowed and he seemed to have shaken off the dream.

"So..." She wanted to ask how often he had dreams like that, but didn't want to freak him out. "How often should I expect these nighttime button pushes?"

"Oh, I uh, hopefully not again." Bruce pushed his hair back and stood up, turning away from her to grab a glass of water. Her fingers slid off his arm as he stood. "Usually I don't wake up...in the middle...like that."

His voice was flat, but there was something open in it she didn't get to hear very often.

"You dream about it a lot?" she asked gently.

"Yeah."

"Me too," she said plainly. His eyes shot up to hers, the pain and worry that haunted most of his looks back in full force.

"You-"

"No, no," she said, knowing he was thinking about the Helicarrier. "I mean, yeah, sometimes, but that's fair, right? No, mostly just that you're changing and I can't get to you in time."

Bruce paused, looking at her, his fingers gripping and turning the water glass, around and around. She saw a flicker of many conflicted emotions pass across his eyes. After a moment he sighed and gave her a soft smile. "I thought you weren't afraid of anything."

She shrugged. She was afraid. Terrified – of the Big Guy, yes but even more terrified of not getting there in time. "I don't like to fail. My job has been to make people talk, to make them believe something, or do something. More often than not it's to make them dead; sometimes to keep them alive. Keeping you yourself turns out to be a lot more complicated than all of those things put together."

"Sorry."

"Don't be."

Bruce moved as if to sit next to her again, but seemed to suddenly notice that she was only wearing a nightie under her tac belt and leaned back against the dresser awkwardly instead, a slight flush creeping up the back of his neck. They just sat for a moment in silence.

Finally, Natasha shook her head a little, clearing the rest of the sleep from her mind, and stood. "You okay?" she asked again, reaching out to touch his arm again. She felt stupid needing to know how he'd react to her touch, but the thought that he'd pull away again, was chewing her up. He didn't.

"Yeah." He gave her a glancing smile she'd started to dub his 'drive-by smile' in her head, looking back down at his hands, but not flinching or moving away.

"Ok. Goodnight, Bruce." She drew her hand back of her own accord, relieved that he was okay with her nearness and turned to go.

"Goodnight, Natasha."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:**

 **This chapter has major spoilers for Winter Soldier. Future chapters will have major spoilers for Age of Ultron.**

* * *

 **Chapter Two:**

Nat woke up feeling like she'd had weird dreams, but she couldn't remember any of them. She was just on her way down to breakfast, feeling oddly springy and chipper, when her SHIELD phone starting ringing with a video call. Hill answered, looking stressed.

"Fury needs you back in DC," she stated shortly.

"What? Why? What about my assignment here?"

"We need you on something sensitive. You'll be briefed on the way. Another agent will be assigned to Banner in the meantime."

Her stomach twisted uncomfortably at the thought of leaving the tower. She almost argued back, but her training took over and she just nodded.

"Plane will be there in twenty minutes."

"Don't you need me to prep my replacement?"

"Banner's a low-grade threat right now. You can send a brief on the plane. This is high priority, Romanoff, we need your full attention."

"You got it." She hung up and turned back to her room to pack.

She hoped she would run into Bruce on the way to the newly completed Quinjet bay, but no luck. Without time to go find him she planned to send him a message on the way and let him know what was going on. The plane was three minutes early and she was there to meet it. She spent the first twenty minutes of the flight updating Banner's file to give the next agent a heads up. She resisted the urge to add "good cook" and "terrible footwork" to the official file. She then perused the file for her next mission.

The plan was for her to grab a car at HQ and pick up Rogers from his place, then bring them both to a smaller base they'd be flying out of with the STRIKE team. When the pilot called back five minutes until landing she tucked away her files and pulled out her phone to send Bruce a text.

 _ _Sorry, Doc. Pulled away for a mission. They're sending a replacement. Don't burn the place down without me.__

A moment later it binged with his reply.

 _ _I'll try not to, but no promises. With you gone I'll have to try to teach Dummy how to cook. Who are they sending?__

 _ _Start with cheesecake, it's Stark's favourite. Don't know. I sent in a brief so they know all about you, though.__

 _ _All nice things I hope. How long?__

 _ _Don't know that either. I'll keep you posted.__

Okay.

There was a long pause and then her phone binged again.

 _ _Be safe.__

She disembarked with a smile on her face.

Natasha knew her way around the Triskelion and made for the garage. No need to check in, she only had two hours to get her and Rogers to the meeting point in time for take-off with the STRIKE unit. She pulled out her phone to text Steve and was t-boned by a tiny, harried-looking blonde making a beeline down the adjacent hall.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry," the girl stammered, bending down to pick up the papers she dropped. Nat grabbed a runaway folder and handed it back to her, she had a name tag that read "Kristin" over a large "4" indicating she worked in administration. She was also wearing a charm on a long chain around her neck. When she leaned forward to grab her folders it slipped out of her shirt and Natasha grinned at the tiny Captain America shield.

"Nice necklace," she said and the girl blushed furiously and tucked it back into her shirt, scooting down the hall, ears glowing bright red. Well, she was cute, and clearly had a painful crush on the Cap. Maybe she could have some fun here in DC with Rogers after all.

Nat went back to her phone, first checking Rogers' location then, seeing he was out, sent him a message.

 _ _Mission alert.__  
Extraction imminent.  
Meet at the curb. :)

Two minutes later they were on the road together. Steve needed to stop at his apartment and grab something so she turned onto a slight detour, happy to spend some extra time in the Stingray. Stark had some nice cars, but she was also pretty sure he had some dense security and as much as JARVIS seemed to like her she didn't think she was going to get a crack at one unless it was an emergency. She had to seize her opportunities while she could.

It was still pretty early in the morning when they arrived at Steve's apartment, but his neighbour was just leaving in her scrubs. She looked up and gave Steve a particular smile as she locked her door. __Wow, two in one hour__ Natasha thought. Looked like the capital had gone Cap-crazy in the few months she'd been gone.

Packed and ready they made excellent time to the rendezvous, though Steve kept grabbing his seat nervously. Really? The guy who single-handedly defeated Nazi Germany didn't like her driving? "Wuss," she said out loud and all she got back was an eye-roll.

Up in the plane, Rumlow gave them the rundown: land quiet, hit 'em hard, get the hostages out. Her phone starting binging and Natasha stepped away to check it. It was a special briefing from SHIELD – Fury's office directly – a secondary mission, and a top-secret one at that.

Well, looked like she'd be needing her flash drive and her handy-dandy lying skills. Faced with keeping her mission from Steve she suddenly realized how casually she'd gotten used to being able to tell the truth to Bruce. There was no need to lie at the tower, life was simple and straight-forward.

It was freaking her out a little.

Her comm buzzed to life as Steve checked the secure line and she checked in. The image of a stressed blonde sprung into her mind and she couldn't help but ask Steve if he was doing anything Saturday night.

"Well all the guys from my barbershop quartet are dead so, no, not really" he joked and she smiled. Steve hit the deck release button as they neared the drop point.

"You know, if you asked Kristin out from statistics, she'd probably say yes," she told him.

"That's why I don't ask."

"Too shy or too scared?" Nat asked.

"Too busy!" he proclaimed jumping out of the plane. Yeah right, she thought. It was definitely too scared.

"Was he wearing a parachute?" One of the STRIKE agents asked from behind her, shocked.

"No, no he wasn't." Rumlow shook his head in disbelief.

He was never going to settle into this century if he didn't get out there and meet people. "Wuss," Nat said to herself, not noticing the strange look she got from both agents.

Enjoying the exasperated eye roll she could get out of him, she tried again when she hit the boat deck. "What about the nurse that lives across the hall from you? She seems kind of nice."

"Secure the engine room, then find me a date," he tossed back, breaking into a run.

"I'm multitasking," she called, flipping over the deck rail.

Everything went smoothly at first, well as smoothly as these things ever go. Despite Steve's over-interest in her location she got the engine room clear and managed to slip away to the data hub to get to her work on her secondary mission. If she could just get this data copied over before Steve and the STRIKE team got clear she could meet up with them on deck and no one would know.

That's when Steve came flying through the door, landing hard and knocking Batroc out with a punch to the face.

"Well this is awkward," she drawled, deciding a sassy offense was the best defense. Steve, however, seemed immune to her wit and while they argued Batroc woke up and took off, leaving a lovely little present behind. Steve reached out to her and she jumped sideways into his arms, shooting out the window and bracing herself against the impact. The explosion rocketed them both into the floor and despite Steve's careful roll she landed hard and nearly got the breath knocked out of her,

"Okay, that one's on me," she admitted, hoping for a laugh or even a smile from the blonde super soldier, but all she got was a cold, "Yeah. It is," and a glare before he got to his feet and ran off.

Shit. She really messed this up. Six months in the Tower playing house with Bruce and she was as soft as a sponge. She hadn't worked out enough, she had wasted her time cooking and joking around and reading Now Rogers was pissed at her and she'd compromised her mission. Fury was going to be pissed too. She let a few choice Russian expletives slip out before getting a grip on herself and running to catch up with Steve.

The ride back to HQ was a cold one. The hostages were scared, the STRIKE team was tired and grumpy, evidently feeling that her disappearance had made their lives more difficult. Steve hadn't revealed where he'd found her, but his shoulder was the coldest of all.

And just when they'd started to get along.

Back at the Triskelion she went straight to Fury and gave him a rundown on what had happened, handing over the flash drive. He actually wasn't as mad as she thought.

"Well, I had to bring Rogers in eventually, I guess," he said, sighing and flipping through some papers on his desk. She didn't ask what he meant, or what he was bringing Rogers in on. At this point all she wanted was a shower and some Advil.

"You can go Agent Romanoff."

"Thank you, sir." She turned and marched out of his office quickly before he could change his mind.

"Oh, and Romanoff?" he said, just as she reached the door.

"Yes, sir?" She turned her head slightly, but didn't turn around.

"Get your shit together."

"Yes, sir," she replied quietly, knowing Fury wouldn't appreciate her tone. She whisked down the hall, into the elevator and headed for the dormitory floor where she still had a room. As she was stepping off, Steve was getting on, still grubby and in his uniform. He ignored her completely, brushing past and pushing the button for the floor she'd just been on.

"Well, screw you too," she thought.

After a shower and a little first-aid she started to feel better. The ache in her muscles had abated and the shower had washed away the embarrassment of her meeting with Fury and getting the brush off from Rogers.

Her mind involuntarily flashed back to the Chitauri invasion, fighting back-to-back with Steve. They fought well together, even he couldn't argue with that. They communicated easily and he was probably the first soldier she'd ever met with absolutely no ego. He always put his teammates first.

And that was why he was so upset that she had gone behind his back. She got it, it wasn't really fair for Fury to give his team side missions, but she was just doing her job.

Of course her job until 18 hours ago had been babysitting Banner in the comfort of Stark's new tower. That she had been doing well. She actually felt like she was getting through to him, like he might start to trust her when she'd been pulled out. And now she was here, screwing up instead.

Nat let out a frustrated groan and tipped backwards onto the bed. She lay there for a while, almost nodding off when the buzzing of her phone shook her awake. Picking it up she realized she'd missed a few texts from Bruce during the mission.

 _ _Dummy is a better student than you. He doesn't complain as much.__

She smiled at the thought of Bruce with only Tony's robots to keep him company.

 _ _I may have slightly set fire to things, but it's okay, I still have most of my toes.__

An hour had passed before:

 _ _SHIELD sent a replacement. She doesn't talk much.__

Natasha's stomach churned unpleasantly at the thought of another agent there instead of her. She wondered who it was. For some reason she didn't want to dwell on too much, it surprised her that it was a she they had sent. There weren't very many high-level female agents. A few more hours had passed before Bruce's latest text.

 _ _How's it going?__

She pushed aside confusing thoughts about Bruce and other agents and typed a message back.

 _ _Not great. Mission over, but I screwed up a little. Fury is pissed, Rogers is pissed. I'm tired. You and Dummy better have made me a kickass cheesecake when I get back.__

Bruce wrote back right away.

 _ _I'm trying but he keeps using the fire extinguisher on the Kitchenaid. It's an uphill battle...sorry things didn't go well. You coming back now?__

 _ _I'm not sure. We'll see. Waiting on debrief. I'll keep you posted.__

She firmly ignored the little thrill she got at the thought that Bruce was as eager to have her back as she was to be back. He was probably just feeling twitchy with someone else on the other end of the panic button, she told herself. Someone he doesn't know.

Thinking about the button reminded her that she hadn't actually disconnected her watch. The other agent could connect hers, but technically Natasha wasn't supposed to be notified if Bruce pushed his button while she was in DC. Her hand hovered over the watch, but ultimately she couldn't bring herself to switch it off. She'd just end up worrying the whole time. At least this way she knew he was okay and she could focus on her current assignment. She fell asleep still wrapped in a towel from her shower, one hand gripping her phone and the other wrapped around her watch.

When it buzzed at 3am she was up and half dressed before she remembered she wasn't at the tower anymore. Looking down at her watch she was momentarily confused when the display was dark and still until she realized it was her phone that had been ringing.

"Romanoff," she answered.

It was Maria Hill. Her voice sounded weird and muffled. "Natasha...it's um. It's Hill." She took a deep breath and the words seemed to come out more easily. "It's Fury. He's been shot. We're at St. Mary's. He's in surgery. They don't...they don't know if he'll make it."

"I'm on my way," Natasha said curtly and hung up the phone. She was dressed and in the Stingray in five minutes flat, it only took her another ten to reach the hospital. She abandoned the car out front and flew inside. Rumlow was out in the hall.

"What happened?" she asked him. She wasn't sure if he was authorized to tell her, but she was pretty sure Rumlow had always been more than a little afraid of her.

"Agent 13 was protecting Rogers from the next door apartment when she heard three shots. Went in to find Fury had been shot three times through the window and was unresponsive. Rogers left in pursuit of the shooter. 13 called us in and we evacuated him here asap." He paused and then added more quietly, "He didn't wake up in the van at all. They took him right in." He gestured to a closed door and Natasha immediately slipped through it.

Rogers and Hill were already there watching the surgery through a large window. A group of doctors and nurses were bustling about him. Fury was stretched out on the operating table, completely still, three obvious bullet holes marring his chest. Natasha went to stand beside Steve.

"Is he going to make it?" she asked.

"I don't know," Steve answered quietly.

"Tell me about the shooter."

"He's fast and strong. He had a metal arm," Steve replied and Natasha's heart sunk into her gut.

The Winter Soldier.

Surely not, not here, not now, not coming after Fury.

Hill had been in the corner, on her phone but she hung up and came to stand next to Natasha.

"Ballistics?" Nat asked, her eyes focused on the surgeon's movements as he attempted to extract the bullets.

"Three slugs. No rifling. Completely untraceable," Hill answered, trying and failing to her keep her voice steady.

"Soviet made," Natasha added. It wasn't a question.

"Yeah." Hill turned to look at her in confusion, but just at that moment something changed. The doctors started moving faster, more urgently and an alarm started going off. They pulled out the crash cart.

Nat felt suspended in time. If she could just stop and be here in this moment forever, Fury wouldn't die. He would be alive and her last conversation with him wouldn't have been a chewing out. He wouldn't die and she would go back to work and see him tomorrow. She'd never had a father figure in her life, but the closest anyone had come to one had been Nick Fury. He'd given her a chance, he'd let her keep Clint as a partner, he'd given her a home...

"Don't do this to me, Nick" she whispered over and over as they tried to restart his heart, once, twice.

But there was nothing. Time marched on and took Nick Fury with it and never in her life had Natasha ever felt so alone or so lost.

She had seen a lot of dead bodies. She had seen a lot of allies die. Teammates, people she fought alongside. It was nothing to her to lose someone like that. But here, in a hospital, cleaned and laid out on white sheets, with his eyes closed like he was sleeping. It felt more disturbing to her than the bloodied, gasping deaths she'd seen, or even caused herself. Her eyes were hot and stinging and her body felt numb. So this was what pointless felt like...directionless...aimless...she had never really been SHIELD's agent, she had always been Fury's agent and now she was nothing.

Steve said her name quietly, stepping forward, but not sure if he should touch her. She rested one hand gently on Fury's forehead and felt it ground her. She did have a mission after all. Find the metal-armed bastard that had shot Nick Fury and rip him apart with her bare hands. She stormed out of the hospital room and Steve came barreling out after her.

"Natasha!" he called and she stopped and spun around.

"Why was Fury in your apartment?" she asked before he could speak again. He was hiding something and she was going to find out what it was.

"I don't know," he said, shrugging unconvincingly.

Rumlow called out to him, letting Steve know he was needed back at SHIELD. There was something too urgent in his voice. Was everyone here lying?

"You're a terrible liar," she told Steve, turning and walking away. When she got to the end of the hall she turned the corner and then stopped, flattening her back against the wall. She turned the front camera on her phone and held it out in front of her, angling it so she could watch what the super soldier did next.

She could tell he was wary of Rumlow too, if he had something to hide, now was his only chance. She watched him eye up the open vending machine and, looking around to make sure no one was watching, he slid something small into the back.

One last look around and he slipped down the hall and out of the hospital.

Nat waited until the vending machine stocker had left and the halls were quiet before slipping down to look inside. She scanned the rows one by one looking for anything unusual until a glint of grey plastic caught her eye. It was her flash drive. The one she'd given Fury with intel from the ship.

If Fury had given it to Steve he must have had a reason. Why go all the way to Rogers' apartment instead of just calling him into SHIELD? Something must have happened...

Natasha pulled a handful of change out of her pocket and started buying gum.

Flash drive (and a lot of gum) in hand, Nat slipped into a nearby empty room and took out her phone. She flipped through all the local news reports until a picture caught her eye. An upside down SUV that looked surprisingly like a SHIELD issued heavy-duty SUV. In fact, it was just like the one Fury drove.

The story was next to useless, something about a distracted driver causing a collision. She couldn't help but wonder if the driver had been distracted by a very old soldier with a metal arm and deadly aim.

She couldn't trust SHIELD right now. The best she could do was wait. Rogers would come back to get the flash drive and she could finally get some straight answers.

 **XXX**

It took him until the next afternoon to show up. He wasn't as happy to see her as she was to see him. A little tense discussion later, and a few too many super-strength shoves against the wall, and she got Steve to agree to follow this up together.

First they hit the mall for clothes and information, where, under threat of discovery, she managed to get a cheeky kiss out of Mr. Tight-Laced. She started to worry she was rubbing off on him when he suggested they "borrow" a truck from the parking lot. One quick hotwire and they were on their way to Wheaton, New Jersey.

She was getting that old, familiar feeling of being on the job again. Usually she'd be alongside Clint, but as far as partners go, Rogers wasn't half bad. Clint, for instance, definitely would have grabbed her ass during their little make-out session on the escalator, whereas Steve had been more like kissing a really surprised, dead fish.

She couldn't help but tease him some more, trying to get back some of the comaraderie they'd had before the Lemurian Star mission had gone pear-shaped.

"Alright, I have a question for you, which you do not have to answer," she said keeping her voice light. "I feel like if you don't answer it though, you're kind of answering it, you know?"

"What?" He still sounded kinda pissed.

"Was that your first kiss since 1945?"

Finally a little smile. "That bad, huh?"

"I didn't say that."

"Well, it kind of sounds like that's what you're saying." He was grinning now, playing along.

"No, I didn't. I just wondered how much practice you had."

"I don't need practice."

"Everybody needs practice." Though if she was fair, she hadn't had much practice recently either. Not much kissing going on at the Tower. Alone with Bruce. Her mind threatened to wander down a dangerous path and Steve's voice thankfully brought her back.

"It was not my first kiss since 1945. I'm ninety-five, I'm not dead."

"Nobody special, though?" Apparently that nurse from next door had been an agent assigned to protect him so the little romance she'd concocted for them wasn't looking too promising. Bodyguards do not start something with their charges, she said to herself firmly.

"Believe it or not, it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience." Steve sounded legitimately frustrated. Her teasing had hit more of a sore spot than she had intended.

"Well, that's alright, you just make something up."

"What, like you?"

"I don't know. The truth is a matter of circumstance, it's not all things, to all people, all the time. And neither am I." In fact, she was rarely the same person twice.

"That's a tough way to live."

"It's a good way not to die, though."

"You know, it's kind of hard to trust someone when you don't know who that someone really is." To her surprise Steve's words hit her pretty hard. She'd spent the last six months trying to get Bruce to trust her. And then here it was, right to the point from Captain America himself: how do you trust a nobody?

She was a ghost, like the Winter Soldier. She had no truth, no life experience to share. She was so focused on staying alive, she didn't have time to live. She was a good spy, but she could never be anything else to anyone. She didn't even know what else anyone could want from her.

She turned to Steve again. "Who do you want me to be?" She tried to sound like she was joking, but she couldn't help but feel like a lot was riding on Steve's answer.

"How about a friend?" He gave her a warm smile.

A friend...yeah right. She'd never had a friend. Ever. Clint wasn't even really her friend. He was her partner, her backup and her brother. She trusted him to be her eyes, her ears and with her life. If he said run, she ran, if he said duck, she ducked. They could joke and play and hang out at the farm together. But a friend? She wasn't sure if she was capable of that. She knew you had to give a little to get a little when it came to affection and while he seemed to give her anything she needed, even when she didn't know it's what she needed, she had nothing to give in return.

"Well, there's a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers," she sighed. There was something so honest and hopeful about his look, though, she couldn't help but smile a little. She'd read about Steve and Bucky, about the Howling Commandos. I guess if she was going to learn about being a friend from anyone, it couldn't be anyone better than Captain Steve Rogers, friend to the nation. He was certainly the kind of guy you wanted fighting in your corner.

At the very least they were in this together so she might as well try her hardest to be straight with him and he might stay on her side long enough to get them out of this alive.

But a friend? That was too much to hope for.

 **XXX**

The abandoned army base was quiet and empty. A quick scan revealed nothing – no heat signatures, no nothing. There was no way the data could have originated here. Natasha was ready to leave when she noticed Steve staring oddly at something behind her.

"What is it?"

"Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards of the barracks. This building in the wrong place." Steve broke the door open with his shield and they found themselves walking into the place where it all started: the original SHIELD headquarters.

Natasha recognized Tony Stark's father's portrait up on the wall, alongside a striking, strong looking woman. She asked Steve who it was and his silence and cold stare was all the answer she needed. She had read his file, knew about Peggy Carter. That must be her. She looked like an amazing person, she could see why Steve was still in love with her.

At first Nat couldn't believe that they had found anything of interest in the secret room under the ancient SHIELD HQ, until the modern, dust-free flash port caught her eye. She glanced at Steve and then, not sure what else to do, she slid the flash drive into the port.

At once fans starting whirring and lights starting blinking all around them and a face lit up the screen.

Arnim Zola. Somehow in the 70s they'd managed to record his entire mind in two hundred thousand feet of data banks. She could barely believe it, and yet, here it was in front of her. It knew her name, when she was born. It spoke to them like Stark's AI, JARVIS.

It told them that Hydra had always been there. Infecting SHIELD, pushing the world into chaos and destruction, removing the people that got in its way. People like Stark's parents. People like Nick Fury. This was it, she'd found out who had taken away the only stability she'd ever had. Hydra had poisoned SHIELD and murdered Fury to stop him from stopping them.

And she was going to destroy them.

Steve was vibrating next to her and she suspected similar things were going through his mind. They may not be friends, but now they sure as hell had shared purpose and that had to count for something.

Zola mentioned Project Insight and Steve seemed to find the name familiar.

"I wrote an algorithm," the doctor explained.

"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" Steve pressed.

"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."

Natasha's phone started binging familiarly and she checked the screen to find a proximity alert flashing at her.

"Steve, I got a bogey," she said holding up her phone to show him the display. "Short-range, ballistic. Thirty seconds, tops."

"Who sent it?" he asked. As if they didn't both already know the answer.

"SHIELD."

"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain." Zola voice crackled. Natasha grabbed the flash drive and shoved it in her pocket, eyes scanning the room, looking for a way out, a place to hide. Steve spotted it first: a grate covering a cut out in the floor. He whipped the grate off and Natasha made a dive for the hole, feeling Steve's firm grip on her arm as he tucked her body under his and held his shield above them.

The explosion vibrated through her whole body, rattling her teeth and blowing her hearing out to a dull buzz. Steve's arm pressed harder and harder against her as he fought against the weight of the collapsing building. She tried to suck in breath after breath, but the air was thick with dust and smoke and the pressure from Steve's body was making it hard to open her lungs.

The last thing she remembered before she passed out was Steve's fingers digging hard into her shoulder, holding her against him so they wouldn't be separated by rubble. Yeah, he was a good guy to have in your corner.

Everything slipped into blackness.

 **XXX**

She woke up lying on cool grass in the dark and immediately started coughing up what felt like an entire building's worth of dust. Her mouth was dry and cracked and her breath was coming in short gasps. She felt a cool hand gentle on her back, calming her frantic coughing and she rolled over to see Steve sitting next to her, looking at her with concern.

"You okay, can you talk?" he asked, handing her a bottle of water.

She coughed again and took a long drink. The cool water soothed her throat and washed away the dust and blood. Finally getting a clear breath in she started to relax. Her voice came out croaky and hoarse. "Yeah, I'm alright. Where are we?"

"About halfway back to DC. I got us to the truck and got away while they were still searching the rubble. I kept driving until I got tired and stopped here for a break. You seemed close to waking up and I thought fresh air would be better than coming to trapped in a seat belt."

"Thanks." She gulped down the rest of the water and sat up, looking around. They were on a small hill in the middle of nowhere. She could see the truck parked a little ways below on a gravel path. Steve was lying back on his jacket, staring up at the stars. She couldn't tell how she looked, but it didn't feel great. At the very least she was very dirty and at worst she could feel a few cuts and scrapes that hadn't yet stopped bleeding. No broken bones though and her lungs were feeling clearer and clearer with every breath.

Steve had saved her life. She glanced over at him, but he just kept staring at the stars.

"Where are we going?" she asked, eventually.

"Back to DC," he said right away. "I have a fr-someone we can go to. We'll be safe there." He paused. "I hope."

When the sun just started to crest the horizon they climbed back in the truck and continued on their way. Natasha couldn't help feeling more and more tense the closer they got. She was surprised when Steve turned into a small residential neighbourhood and led her up to a row of townhouses. He knocked on the large glass door and after a minute a man pulled up the shade.

It took her a moment, but Natasha recognized the guy Steve had been standing with when she had picked him up from his run before the Lemerian Star mission. He had liked her car.

Among other things.

"Hey man," the guy said uncertainly, taking in their ragged, bloodied, dirt-covered selves.

"I'm sorry about this. We need a place to lay low." Steve looked pained and Natasha wondered how well he knew this guy.

"Everyone we know is trying to kill us," she added helpfully.

"Not everyone," the man said, stepping back and gesturing them in. "Sam Wilson," he added holding his hand out to her and she shook it gratefully.

"Natasha Romanoff."

"I feel like you guys have a story to tell, but if you'd like to get cleaned up first or something..." he trailed off, eyeing a piece of ceiling in Steve's hair.

"Yes please," Natasha said.

Sam showed them the shower and some towels, leaving the two of them in his room while he went to the kitchen.

Natasha caught Steve's eye questioningly and he gestured towards the bathroom, giving her a small smile. "Ladies first."

"Thanks," she said sincerely. The shower washed away the dirt and dust and the steam seemed to clear the last of the explosive, metal tang from her mouth. Dressed back in her tank top and jeans she found Steve in the bedroom stripped down to the same. She waved him into the bathroom with a nod of her head and sat on the bed to dry her hair. He turned on the sink and starting brushing concrete dust out of his hair.

Her hands moved idly as her mind traveled a mile a minute.

SHIELD was a lie. Everything in her life had always been a lie, but at least lately they had been lies she felt right standing behind. Clint had pulled her out of the KGB and given her something worth fighting for and now that had turned out to be a lie too. Just when she had started feeling like there were things in her life she could count on, it was all falling apart. Being at the tower with Bruce was a distant memory. She was sure he had texted her – he'd probably heard about Fury by now – but she couldn't bring herself to check it. How could she talk to him when all she could give him were more lies?

She looked up and noticed Steve had stopped the water and was staring at her, concerned.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, shortly, cutting herself off when she realized she was telling yet another lie. He could tell, of course, and didn't accept her answer in the slightest. He threw the towel to the side and came to sit in front of her. He'd barely made a dent in the smudges of dirt along his arms, but his attention was fully on her. It was kind of dazzling actually. Natasha felt the full presence, not of Captain America, but of Steve Rogers.

"What's going on?" he asked, probing gently, giving her time to answer.

She took a deep breath and stopped fiddling with her hair. "When I first joined SHIELD, I thought I was going straight. But I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA. I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but...I guess I can't tell the difference anymore."

Steve didn't even miss a beat. "There's a chance you might be in the wrong business."

She couldn't help but let a slight smile curl her lips. For the upholder of American values he could be awfully sassy. She met his gaze and suddenly realized just what he'd done for her. It felt like more than saving her life. He had let her in, made her his team. He didn't hesitate, he didn't expect anything from her. The bruises on her arm reminded her how tightly he had held on, desperate not the let her get lost in the collapsing building around them. He dug her out and carried her all the way back to the truck. He hadn't just saved her life, he had cherished it. She had nothing to give in return.

"I owe you," she almost whispered, not knowing what else to say.

He immediately shook his head. "It's okay."

She felt a rush of something she recognized as trust. Something she didn't give up lightly, but felt this man had earned a hundred times over. And suddenly she had to know.

"If it was the other way around, and it was down to me to save your life, and you be honest with me, would you trust me to do it?"

He paused, meeting her eyes, looking at her like he was trying to find something in them. Evidently he found it. "I would now," he said, and she believed him, "And I'm always honest."

That got a smile out of both of them and the tension of the moment was broken. "You look awfully chipper for someone who just found out they died for nothing," she joked. Steve leaned back and stretched out his sore arms.

"Well. I guess I just like to know who I'm fighting." That, at least, was a sentiment she could get behind. There was no question about it now, SHIELD was their enemy.

Sam popped his head in. "I made breakfast. If you guys eat...that sort of thing."

Natasha laughed. "We sure do. Steve usually eats four or five breakfasts."

"Hey, I have a fast metabolism."

"Yeah and I'm sure Pop Tarts are a vital part of maintaining your super-strength."

Steve sighed dramatically and gave her a little shove as she tried to stand up, tipping her backwards onto the bed, as he got up and followed Sam into the kitchen.

Maybe a friend wasn't such a crazy idea after all.

 **XXX**

Sam turned out to be a good ally to have and one with a little trick up his sleeve. One break-in and a clothes shopping expedition later and they were on their way to tracking down Sitwell. They found him finishing up lunch with Senator Stern.

From her perch two buildings over Natasha dialed Sitwell's cell, masking the call so it would look like it was coming from Pierce, then routing the call to Sam. Up here, pointing a sniper rifle at Sitwell's chest she found herself missing Clint. Usually he'd be the one up here and she'd be down there cracking jokes at the mark's expense. She's been in hiding before and she'd always had enemies to run from, but she'd also always had backup, an organization standing behind her. Now all she had were Steve and Sam and a lot of people who wanted them all dead.

They took Sitwell for a little ride and then a spin with the Falcon to help jog his memory and he finally started to spill about Zola's algorithm.

"Zola's algorithm is a program...for choosing Insight's targets."

"What targets?" Steve asked.

"You!" He gestured at Steve. "A TV anchor in Cairo, the Undersecretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa city. Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who's a threat to HYDRA! Now, or in the future."

Natasha's blood ran cold at Bruce's name and she glanced over at Steve. His teeth were clenched and his eyes were dark. If Bruce got hurt it would be her fault. She had dragged him into the spotlight, convinced him to show the world what he was capable of and now he was a target along with the rest of them. She'd spent most of her life running around with a target on her back of one kind or another, but having Bruce in the cross-hairs might just push her over the edge.

"The Future? How could it know?" Steve asked.

Sitwell laughed maniacally. "How could it not? The 21st century is a digital book. Zola taught HYDRA how to read it. Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, e-mails, phone calls, your damn SAT scores. Zola's algorithm evaluates peoples' past to predict their future."

"And what then?"

Sitwell suddenly blanched and looked away, distracted. "Oh, my God. Pierce is gonna kill me."

 _ _Yes, he is__ , Natasha thought, __if he gets there first__.

"What then?!" Steve insisted.

"Then the Insight Helicarriers scratch people off the list. A few million at a time."

Natasha was all for pushing Sitwell off the roof again, this time with Sam's wings tucked away, but Steve grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back down to the car.

Steve explained the plan in the car. They would go back to the Triskelion, use Sitwell's access to get to the Helicarriers and shut them down before Insight could get off the ground.

It was a good plan until a metal arm smashed through the window, pulling Sitwell out of the car and flinging him into on-coming traffic.

Natasha's reaction time was a second slower than she would have liked, her mind flashing back uncomfortably to a bullet ripping its way through her gut and into the man she was supposed to protect, but when the first shot came through the roof she flipped gracefully into Rogers' lap in the passenger seat and pulled both of them out of the way of the second and third shots.

Steve slammed the car into park and a dark figure spun forward off the roof, rolling down the asphalt and sliding to his feet, metal fingers gouging deep grooves into the highway's surface.

It was him. The Winter Soldier. He really was here.

He looked exactly the same.

She felt Steve tense underneath her and knew what he was thinking. Natasha pulled out her gun, pointing it straight at the soldier's face. Just as she was about to pull the trigger there was a crash and she was thrown back against Steve as the car lurched forward, her gun clattering down into the footwell.

The truck behind them sped up pushing the car straight at the metal-armed man who didn't hesitate. He leaped up into the air and the back window smashed as he landed on top of them. Natasha groped wildly beneath the seat, trying to get a grip on her gun while the car weaved, caught on the truck behind them.

The soldier's silver arm smashed through the roof of the car like it was tin foil, ripping the steering wheel out of Sam's hands and flinging it from the car.

"Shit!" Sam exclaimed.

Natasha finally wrapped her fingers around the grip of her pistol and fired at the soldier. She wasn't even sure if her bullets could hurt him, but he jumped out of the way, on to the the hood of the advancing SHIELD truck.

With no way to steer, one solid hit from the truck sent them spinning out of control.

"Hold on!" Steve yelled and she felt him grab her hard by her leather jacket and tuck her body against his. Grabbing Sam, Steve rammed his hefty weight against the car door and it sprang free, sending the three of them skittering across the highway as the car flipped into a pile of twisted metal and broken glass behind them.

Sam rolled away as they began to slow, but Steve had a death grip on Natasha, holding her tight against the steel of the door and his shield. The door came to a stop and they had just scrambled to their feet when the Winter Soldier lifted an M4 against his shoulder and shot a grenade directly at them. Steve's hand slammed into her shoulder shoving her out of its path. She turned back just in time to see the grenade hit his shield and explode sending him flying off the overpass.

There was a loud smash from below, but Natasha had no time to worry about Steve. Joining Sam behind their overturned car she heard the assault rifle fire rip through the flimsy metal. She couldn't stay here and be mowed down.

Moving along the cars that now littered the highway she took a few shots at the advancing gang whenever she had the chance, but she was outgunned and their unrelenting rain of bullets made it next to impossible to get a clear shot in.

A grenade from the Winter Soldier finally hit its mark sending her spinning off the edge of the overpass. Firing her grappling gun she swung underneath and hit the ground running.

The shadows of the STRIKE team above her slowed her step, waiting until things shifted slightly, their attention turning towards an overturned bus. She stepped back and fired, hitting the masked soldier directly in the eye. He disappeared behind the median and she ducked behind the bus wheels for cover. The Winter Soldier appeared again, his cracked goggles discarded and his eyes full of rage.

Natasha raised her guns and started firing again until she saw the slide lock back on both her pistols, signaling the end of her ammo, so she turned and ran, leaving the overpass well behind her. Watching from behind a parked car she saw Sam and Steve take on the remaining members of the STRIKE team

The Winter Soldier had left Steve and Sam at the overpass and made his way down the street towards Natasha. She slipped behind a blue car, her breath ragged and her heart pounding. She honestly wasn't sure if they would be able to take him out. The street was still teeming with civilians and she was low on weapons. Checking her pockets she found one stun disc, her garrote and a digital recorder she used for interrogations and messages to SHIELD.

She made a quick recording that sounded like a call for backup, turned the volume down to a whisper and tucked it against the car's wheel. Quieting her breath and stepping on soundless toes she slipped a few cars down until she passed the soldier then cut across the street, ducking behind the cars on the other side.

She saw him pick up the thread of her voice and creep up towards the blue car. Pulling a small metal ball from a pouch on his belt he rolled it under the car towards the recorder. A moment later an explosion shot the car off its wheels and into the air. The soldier hesitated and Natasha saw her chance.

Flinging herself out from behind the car she landed hard on his back. Spinning her legs around on to his shoulders she pulled out her garrote and tried to wrap it around his neck. He got one hand under the wire and they wrestled briefly, but she just couldn't get the wire tight. He flipped her painfully over his shoulders and onto the asphalt.

Knowing she couldn't take him hand to hand, she tossed her last weapon straight at him and let out a shaky exhale of relief when it landed on his metal arm. The shock seemed to temporarily shut down his control and she leaped to her feet and started running as fast as she could.

She knew he would be right behind her, but if she could just get the area clear, maybe she could hold him off until Steve could get there.

"Get out of the way!" she yelled at the swarms of people lining the streets. They were panicking, hiding, running, but not far enough. Fuck, they were going to have a lot of civilian casualties if they didn't get him contained fast.

The bullet came out of nowhere and ripped through her right shoulder, stealing her breath and sending a shock of adrenaline straight to her heart. She gasped, falling to her knees, trying to regain control. Scrambling back against a car she scanned the area, fighting the fuzziness that threatened her vision. Nothing to her right where the shot had come from, where was the masked bastard?!

A click from up and to her left and she saw him. Standing on a car with the M4 muzzle pointed right at her face. She tried to tell her body to move, but the message seemed to be taking forever to reach her muscles.

Suddenly Steve came out of nowhere, shield back in hand charging at the Winter Soldier. They collided with a clang. Natasha took a moment to assess her injury. Her breath was back and the shock had lessened somewhat. She moved her shoulder gently, testing. Nothing was broken and the bullet had gone clean through. With a little first-aid she'd be okay. She had to get it pretty soon though or she'd pass out from blood loss. She eased her way around the car, trying to get eyes on Steve.

He and the solider were engaged hand-to-hand, Steve had lost his shield again and the soldier's metal arm was making it hard for Steve to get the upper hand. The soldier slammed Steve into the side of a van, using his arm's super strength to punch through the metal, right next to Steve's head. Steve managed to hold him back, sliding along the van, the knife cutting straight through its metal sides. Using their momentum Steve was able to flip the soldier backwards and grab his shield again.

Natasha looked around desperately, one hand clamped over her bleeding shoulder, trying to find something to help Steve. Her guns were gone or empty and the few weapons she'd had without her tac belt were used up.

Suddenly all went quiet. She looked up and Steve and the Winter Soldier were standing 20 feet apart, staring at each other, the soldier's mask lying discarded between them. Steve looked like he'd seen a ghost.

"Bucky?" he asked, shocked.

Okay, so maybe he had seen a ghost. She wasn't close enough to get a good look, but the man answered with an American accent.

"Who the hell is Bucky?"

Steve just stood there, shield lowered, staring. Shit, he was going to get himself killed. Natasha scrambled around spotting the M4 the soldier had dropped earlier. Dragging herself over to it, Natasha managed to get a hand around the grip just in time to see Sam swoop in at full speed, knocking the surprised soldier to the ground. She lifted the weapon and checked it. The mag was empty, but there was a grenade already loaded in the launcher.

Leaning against a van, assault rifle clutched in her grip Natasha could see straight over Steve's shoulder and into the Winter Soldier's unmasked face.

It really was Bucky Barnes.

He looked just like the pictures in the files on the Howling Commandos. His face creased with confusion, but it passed into determination and he raised his arm to fire straight at a completely unresponsive Steve.

Natasha braced herself against the car, ignoring the increasing pain in her shoulder, and fired.

 **XXX**

The rocking of the SHIELD van was making the seat press uncomfortably into her wounds and Natasha fought to stay awake as they bounced along. Steve told them about Bucky's experimentation at the hands of Zola and how it must have saved his life and stolen his memory. This Bucky didn't know Steve and had been fighting for Hydra for the last 50 years. She'd never seen Steve in so much agony.

"None of that's your fault, Steve," she tried to reassure him.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky." Nat knew what that was like. She thought back to seeing Clint taken by Loki, fighting against them. How he had looked at her with no trust, no love, just aggression. She would have done anything to get Clint back then, sacrificed herself in a heartbeat. She knew exactly what Steve was feeling.

Steve looked broken...and kinda blurry. Natasha tipped her head back against the seat, trying to stay focused on the here and now, trying to stay awake at the very least. Sam noticed how much she was bleeding and yelled at one of the guards. The guard pulled out his baton and Nat braced herself for another fight...with a gunshot wound...while handcuffed. I mean, she'd been in worse situations, for sure, but this was going to suck.

All three captives sucked in a surprised breath when the guard slammed the baton into the other guard instead of Sam and pulled off her helmet.

Natasha had never been so happy to see Maria Hill in her life.

The trip out to the secret bunker was a bit of a blur. Sam held gauze tightly to Natasha's wounds, but she kept drifting in and out. Hill focused on driving. No one seemed up to asking questions, Sam focused on keeping Nat alive and Steve was lost somewhere in the past.

Hill called out to the doctor when they arrived and he offered to take her right away, but Hill insisted there was someone she'd want to see first. They walked down a long hall and Hill pushed aside a curtain to reveal a hospital bed.

In the bed, injured but alive and breathing, was Nick Fury.

Nat didn't know if she was going to faint, cry, or scream so instead she just stood there, staring.

Fury was alive.

While the doctor treated her wounds Fury recounted what had happened. Apparently his injuries were extensive, but not enough to kill him. With Hill's help and a drug Bruce had developed a while ago they were able to fake his death convincingly enough that even his closest team had believed it.

Steve asked what they were both thinking, "Why all the secrecy? Why not just tell us?"

"Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful." Hill said tactfully, as if they hadn't been involved in faking deaths before.

"Can't kill you if you're already dead," Fury said, and then, seeing the look on their faces he added, "Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust."

And that was the nub of it all. When the organization you had worked so hard to build turned against you, how do you know which side anyone is on? She liked to think Fury would trust her with anything, but it's not like she had never doubted him in all this time. He was bringing them in now and that's what mattered.

Also, more importantly: Fury was alive.

Or perhaps even more importantly: the doctor had just given her an injection of something really, really nice and sleep was settling heavily over her. She glanced up at Steve and he gave her a soft smile and rested his hand on her good shoulder. He could see her fighting the drugs, wanting to stay awake.

"You're alright," he said quietly, "don't worry." And she was out.

 **XXX**

She was only down for two hours and she came to with her shoulder wrapped tight, feeling sore, but a thousand times better. She could hear Steve telling Fury what they had been up to the last few days, ending with the fight with the Winter Soldier and the realization that he was his old friend Bucky Barnes, raised from the dead.

Sam, who had been sitting nearby, noticed she was awake and called out to the others. Apparently they had all been waiting on her to discuss the next steps. Natasha was relieved they had waited for her, she had a feeling Steve had something to do with that. They didn't have much time left, but it was crucial they did this as a team.

Fury and Hill laid it out: in just a few hours the Helicarriers would be released. At three thousand feet they would triangulate with the Insight satellites and acquire their targets. Their only chance was to replace the targeting blades, cutting off the Helicarrier's access to the information. If they didn't get all three a lot of people would die, including the man back at the Tower who Natasha was having hard time keeping out of her mind.

Fury continued, "Maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what's left-"

"We're not salvaging anything." Steve cut him off. "We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick, we're taking down SHIELD."

"SHIELD had nothing to do with it."

"You gave me this mission, this is how it ends. SHIELD's been compromised, you've said so yourself. HYDRA was right under your nose and nobody noticed."

"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? I noticed."

Steve looked furious. "And how many paid the price before you did?"

"Look, I didn't know about Barnes," Fury said, his voice softening.

"Even if you had, would you have told me? Or would you have compartmentalized that too? SHIELD, HYDRA, it all goes."

Hill spoke up. "He's right."

Of course he was right. HYDRA's poison spread too extensively through SHIELD's veins. Maybe there was still some good going on, maybe some of the people there were still trying to save instead of destroy, but it was too late to find out. The only way to take out HYRDA was to take out everything. As much as it pained Natasha to see the end of the only thing about herself she had ever been proud of, it had to be done. SHIELD was dying, murdered by HYDRA's parasitic influence and the best thing they could do now was put it out of its misery.

Fury met her eyes and saw her resolve, turning on to the newest member of the team for his opinion.

"Don't look at me," Sam said, nodding towards the Captain, "I do what he does, just slower."

"Well..." Fury leaned back in his chair and met Steve's determined gaze. "Looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain."

With their plan in place they each split up to get their things together and get themselves ready for what was to come. Sitting on the edge of Fury's empty hospital bed Natasha pulled out her phone and flicked it on. Hill had managed to recover it from the scene while loading them up in the STRIKE van.

Natasha had seen the waiting messages icon flashing in the corner since Sam's place, but she hadn't checked them. With SHIELD out of the picture there were only two people who texted her: Clint and Bruce, and talking to either of them right now seemed too painful to deal with. She toyed with the phone's metal case, snapping it on and off trying to figure out what on earth she was doing.

Finally, she made up her mind, swiping open her text program to see 1 msg from Clint and 3 from Bruce.

Clint's had just said: __All agents alert that Cap on the run. Fury dead? What is going on?__

He'd been on assignment in Europe up until a few days ago and had two weeks vacation right after so she hoped he was still at the farm. She typed him back quickly.

 _ _All not what it seems. Fighting the good fight. If you are where I think you are,__ _ _ **stay there**__ _ _.__

Next she opened up the messages from Bruce.

 _ _I heard about Fury, what's going on?__

A few hours later

 _ _The new agent has disappeared. SHIELD won't take my calls. News says Cap is on the run. You guys okay?__

And then just ten minutes ago.

 _ _Natasha, please tell me you're okay. Steve just got arrested on the news at gunpoint.__

She took a few deep breaths before replying, trying to calm her increased heart rate at the thought of Bruce worrying all alone at the tower.

 _ _Stay cool, Doc, we're all fine. The arrest didn't stick. Can't say much, but stay at the tower and don't contact SHIELD. Keep Stark out of it too. No telling what the outcome will be.__

She sent the message and then fiddled for a moment with her watch. When there was no immediate response she sent another message.

 _ _You'd better not panic right now. I'm kinda up to my elbows and I don't want to have to drop everything and come save your sorry ass from the boogey man :)__

A few minutes later her phone binged, but it was from Clint.

 _ _Ten four. Be careful. Call if you need me.__

 _ _Will do,__ she replied.

She hung around waiting a bit longer, but nothing came from Bruce so she grabbed her bag and headed out to the truck.

She arrived at the airport just in time to see her target climb into a large SUV. Security was minimal, just a lightly armed driver, on his own unless he called for backup. Natasha pulled out and drove a few miles down the road to a quiet curve where she knew they would have to pass. She waited until the SUV came into view and then ran into the road, waving her hands, putting on her best 'damsel in distress' look.

The driver slowed to a halt, rolling down his window as she came into view.

"Hi, Sweetie," she said, smiling brightly at the driver.

He looked her up and down, confused. "Uh, hi?" His eyes narrowed and his hand reached for his radio. Natasha grabbed the front of his jacket and slammed his face into the steering wheel twice. Hawley let out a scream from the backseat and then quickly covered her mouth with her hand, scrambling as far away as she could. The driver went limp and Natasha ripped open the back door, climbing in and pointing her gun at the councilwoman.

"Take off your clothes," she said, reaching forward to pull the radio off the driver's belt. Unfortunately the movement jostled him awake and he came to in a panic, slamming his foot down on the gas. Natasha was slammed backwards into the door which sprung open nearly depositing her on the pavement. Her gun flew out of her grip and disappeared down the road as they sped away.

Grunting against the re-surging pain in her shoulder, Natasha hauled herself back in and used her foot to push Hawley back against the far door, slamming her own door shut behind her. Reaching forward she grabbed at the driver who was weaving wildly down the road, desperately trying to dislodge her.

Getting a hold of his face she wrapped her hand over his mouth only to feel his teeth on her hand as he bit down. Hard.

Okay, now she was pissed.

Giving the councilwoman one last shove she flipped herself into the front passenger seat and kicked the driver's head against the window. The glass cracked and his eyes slipped out of focus as he fell unconscious. Grabbing his leg she hauled his foot off the gas and pulled up on the e-brake. The car skidded to a halt, showering the road with broken glass from the window.

Natasha reached over and pulled the driver's stun gun from his side pocket, turning back to the cowering woman in the backseat.

"Okay, lets try that again," she said calmly, aiming the gun at Hawley's face, "Take off your clothes."

Dressed in Councilwoman Hawley's dark blue power suit, pearls and heels, Natasha drove them back down the road and switched into her undamaged car. She tied up the real Hawley and the driver and left them in their backseat. Pulling a case out of the trunk she removed the delicate mesh inside and lay it carefully over her face. Using the rear view mirror she adjusted the mesh until it flickered indicating it was in the right position. Activating it with her phone she saw her face morph into Hawley's. Wow, Stark had been working on some cool shit lately. This was one piece of tech she was hoping she could keep when this was all over.

Wig on, and with a voice modulator tucked against her back tooth, she climbed into the truck and took off for the Triskelion. Just as she was about to take off, her phone buzzed and she turned on the screen.

One message from Bruce: __Okay, please be careful.__ He would not approve of what she was about to do next, but it brought a smile to her face anyway.

Pierce met her and the other council members in the lobby.

"And how was your flight?" he said to her, politely.

"Lovely," she replied, Hawley's voice coming out of her mouth, "the ride from the airport less so."

 **XXX**

Up in Pierce's office Natasha waited tensely for her cue. She didn't want to blow her cover too soon, but her job was to protect the council at all costs, even if that meant taking down Pierce. Hopefully Steve, Sam and Hill would shut things down before the Helicarriers even took off and she could get to work dismantling SHIELD.

Just as they were about to drink a toast to Pierce's brilliance, Captain America's voice boomed out over the loudspeaker.

"Attention, all SHIELD agents. This is Steve Rogers. You've heard a lot about me over the last few days, some of you were even ordered to hunt me down. But I think it's time you know the truth. SHIELD is not what we thought it was, it's been taken over by HYDRA. Alexander Pierce is their leader. The STRIKE and Insight crew are HYDRA as well. I don't know how many more, but I know they're in the building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want: absolute control. They shot Nick Fury and it won't end there. If you launch those Helicarriers today, HYDRA will be able to kill anyone that stands in their way, unless we stop them. I know I'm asking a lot, but the price of freedom is high, it always has been, and it's a price I'm willing to pay. And if I'm the only one, then so be it. But I'm willing to bet I'm not."

Damn right you're not, Natasha thought, slipping one of her stun discs into her hand and arming it.

Rockwell immediately turned to Pierce. "You smug son of a bitch"

Two agents entered the room and Natasha recognized them as part of Rumlow's STRIKE team. If anyone was HYDRA, these boys were it.

"Arrest him!" Singh pointed the agents towards Pierce, but Natasha wasn't surprised when they pointed their guns at Singh instead. Singh fell silent and they all turned to look at Pierce. He was smiling.

"I guess I've got the floor." Pierce wandered over to the window and looked out thoughtfully on the chaos below. With no comm Nat wasn't sure what Steve and Sam were up to but it looked like they were causing some mischief. At the very least they weren't dead yet.

Pierce walked back over the the group of angry councilmen and picked up a glass of champagne, handing it to Councilman Singh.

"Let me ask you a question. What if Pakistan marched into Mumbai tomorrow, and you knew that they were gonna drag your daughters into a soccer stadium for execution? And you could just stop it with a flick of a switch. Would you? Wouldn't you all?"

"Not if it was your switch." Singh's jaw tensed and he threw the glass aside, shattering it on the floor. Well, he's got balls, Natasha thought to herself, and now I'm going to have to save him. Pierce smiled grimly, grabbed a gun from the agent nearest, and raised it to point it at Singh's face.

Natasha turned into a tornado of action. Kicking the councilman out of the way she grabbed the gun from Pierce, slamming her fist into his nose, and tossed her armed stun disc into the face of the agent behind her. She threw the gun into the face of another agent, ramming one into the table and the last against the floor. When all the agents were down she stood up, lifting a gun to aim it right at Pierce's shocked face.

"I'm sorry," Natasha said. Turning off the identity web and pulling off her wig she stared Pierce down. "Did I step on your moment?"

Pierce grimaced, spitting out blood from his split lip, but he didn't say anything. She handed the gun to Councilman Yen indicating he should keep it on Pierce while she ran to the terminal and dove into the security system.

Rockwell looked up at the numbers and files skirting across the screen. "What are you doing?"

"She's disabling security protocols and dumping all the secrets onto the Internet," Pierce informed him, watching the information flick over the screen.

"Including HYDRA's," Natasha reminded him.

"And SHIELD's," Pierce added. "If you do this, none of your past is gonna remain hidden. Are you sure you're ready for the world to see you as you really are?"

It had actually been a surprisingly easy decision to make. She'd have just enough time to get the worst of it removed and to protect Clint a little before going live. Fury had asked her before they left if she was ready to do this and she found that she really was. She was done with lying. If the world wanted to tear her apart at least it would be because she had told the truth for once, and even if SHIELD wasn't something she could be proud of, she could be proud of this.

She thought about Bruce back at the tower and prayed desperately that Rogers was shutting down the Helicarriers. He had told her once that being the Hulk didn't feel like wearing a suit of armour, it felt exposed, like a nerve. Well, maybe that was the difference between being a spy and being a hero. It was time for her to be exposed, like Bruce was, like Steve was, and stop hiding behind the lies.

She paused in her typing and looked him right in the eye. "Are you?"

This cocky, desperate, crazy, bastard was going to suffer for what he'd done.

She got as far as the final disabling of the encryption and was locked out, needing executive order. The sound of chopper blades on the balcony let her know that Fury was here. Holding Pierce at gunpoint they both supplied their retinal scans and released the last lock allowing Natasha to go live.

"Done," she said, pulling up twitter on her phone and watching the internet explode, "and it's trending."

A scream tore through the quiet and she spun around to see Singh's chest ignite, burning a massive hole instantly right through his clothes and into his chest. On her other side Yen and Rockwell were suffering the same. The biometric security pins were rigged. Natasha whipped around pointing her gun at Pierce. He had his hand on his phone, thumb held just above what she assumed was the trigger for her own pin.

"Unless you want two inch hole in your sternum, I'd put that gun down. That was armed the moment you pinned it on."

Shit, she should never have trusted anything given to her by this lunatic. Fury lowered his gun first, catching her eye and she followed suit. Pierce picked up the gun, keeping one finger hovered over his phone. He walked over to the terminal and started flipping through. When he saw there was nothing he could do about the intel leak he glanced up and looked Natasha in the eye. She held his gaze. At least if he killed them now, the damage had already been done.

Pierce checked in with the Insight Tech crew and Natasha held her breath. C'mon Steve...she thought...take this asshole down.

They stood there for a tense minute watching the last connected Helicarrier blink into life, targets were acquired and Natasha hoped desperately that none of the little lights in New York were her favourite scientist.

And then at the last possible second the lights blinked away, the system rebooted and only three targets came online. They all turned to look out the window as the Helicarriers turned on each other, ripping themselves apart.

"What a waste," Pierce growled.

Natasha breathed out in relief. "Are you still on the fence about Roger's chances?"

Pierce sprung to life and waved his gun at her. "Time to go, Councilwoman. This way, come on. You're gonna fly me out of here."

"You know," Fury spoke up, still looking out the window. "There was a time I would have take a bullet for you."

"You already did," Pierce said, turning to look at him. Natasha slipped her hand into her jacket and pulled out her last stun disc. This was going to suck, but if it worked it should disable the pin long enough for Fury to take Pierce down. She only hoped he was up for it with three holes in his chest and a sling. She was going to have to sit this one out. Pierce couldn't resist one more jibe in Fury's direction. "You will again when-"

Natasha pushed down on the button and felt her whole body seize up, electricity crackling over her skin. Her heart gave a horrifying lurch and everything went black.

She woke up to Fury calling her name. Everything ached and her jaw was in agony from the shock of slamming it shut. It felt like her gunshot wound had re-opened to top it all off.

"Ow," she groaned, "those really do sting."

Fury helped her to stand and she saw Pierce, two bullet holes in his chest, lying in a pile of broken glass. Fury didn't look back, just grabbed her arm and marched her to the chopper. While he got ready for take off she slipped out of Hawley's clothes and into the tac suit she had stashed in the back. They lifted off the balcony and Fury started a slow spiral around the combat zone, looking for signs of Steve.

Suddenly Sam's voice broke through on her headset.

"Please tell me you got that chopper in the air!"

"Sam!" she called. "Where are you?"

"41st floor, north-west corner!" he called, sounding out of breath.

"We're on it, stay where you are!"

"Not an option!" They came out from behind a cloud of smoke and Natasha could see one of the Helicarriers had crashed sideways into the Triskelion, tearing through glass and metal like tissue paper. They both craned their necks, trying to catch sight of Sam when suddenly he came flying through a plate glass window above them, arms spread wide to slow his fall.

Fury yanked hard on the controls, tipping the bird sideways and angling it under Sam's path. Natasha braced her legs against the far side of the chopper and reached up, grabbing his arms as he plummeted inside.

His momentum carried him right through the chopper slamming into the opposite door and breaking it off. Natasha clung to his arms, willing him not to let go. If there were any stitches in her shoulder that hadn't popped from nearly getting dumped out of an SUV, or the electric shock, they sure as hell were popped now. Fury tipped the chopper back to level and she pressed her feet hard against the wall, pulling Sam in.

"41st floor! 41St!" Sam yelled, his chest heaving.

Fury leaned back, pulling the helicopter back into the sky. "It's not like they put the floor numbers on the outside of the building!"

Natasha wasn't listening though. She was scanning the skies and the ground below them, looking for Steve. Where had he got to? The line had been dead besides Sam for at least ten minutes.

"Hill, where's Steve?" she called. "You got a location on Rogers?"

There was no answer. Hill had already left, evacuating with the rest of the building.

It took an hour of searching before they found him, washed up on the shores of the Potomac, a trail of blood darkening the dirt around him. Fury landed the chopper and Sam and Natasha were out before the rails hit the ground.

"Steve!" she called, running to his side. "Please don't be dead, please don't be dead." She slipped two fingers into the collar of his uniform and pressed them against his neck. For a terrible moment she felt nothing..and then...a beat. His heart. "He's alive!" she called and Sam let out a sigh of relief. They hauled him into the chopper and took off for the nearest hospital.

Thanks to his serum-induced healing factor and two surgeries the doctor felt it was likely he'd be just fine – as long as he woke up. Sam and Natasha took it in shifts to watch over him. On the third day Natasha walked out of the committee hearing feeling better than she had when she walked in. If some waggled fingers and disgruntled politicians were the worst she could expect coming out of this, she would be just fine. Now if only...her phone buzzed and she picked it up. It was a message from Sam.

 _ _He's awake.__

By the time she got to the hospital Steve was sitting up and joking around with the staff. "Well, looks like someone made a full recovery," she joked, leaning against the door frame.

Steve looked up from the autograph he was signing for a thrilled looking resident. "Natasha!" he said and his smile was so genuine she couldn't help but smile back.

"Hey, Rogers." She sat down on the edge of the bed. "Nice try, but we're not letting you get away that easily."

"Yeah, you got me. Guess I'll stick around a little longer." He grabbed her hand and looked at her seriously. "Thank you."

"It's okay." She repeated his words from Sam's apartment what felt like years ago. "I'm not about to bail on a friend, am I?"

She wasn't sure she'd ever seen him smile so brightly.

A week later she got a message from Fury calling her down to meet at the graveyard. When she pulled up she saw Fury leaning against a plain, black car, looking down amongst the gravestones. Coming up next to him and following his gaze she saw Sam and Steve, backs to them, shaking hands and laughing at something.

Fury handed her a file. "I assume this was you. It came to me from Kiev through some very strange channels."

"Yes. Thank you." She glanced at it briefly and then looked up at Fury. "Where has everyone gone?"

"Well, Hill is starting a job at Stark Industries next week. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw her again real soon. Most of the agents have quietly disappeared, some of the ones who stood up to HYDRA have moved on to work at other agencies. Sharon Carter for one is at the CIA."

"Sharon Carter, who's that?"

"Agent 13. She was assigned to protect Rogers while he was living in DC. Stayed in the apartment next door. I understand she stood up to Rumlow and almost stopped him from launching the Helicarriers. She's also the agent who found me when I'd been shot."

"Good for her," Natasha said, pondering. Maybe she'd be able to get Steve a date after all. "What about you?"

"I'm heading to Europe. You coming with?"

Natasha thought about it for a while. It would be nice to just keep going, follow Fury and keep fighting HYDRA until it ripped her apart. But, then again...she felt tired. Not just long-day tired, but bone-achingly tired. She needed a break, Fury would have to fight his own battles for a while. "Sorry. I can't right now."

"I understand." Fury walked off down the rows of tombstones towards the two chatting men. Natasha hung back, reading quickly through the file she'd been handed. She didn't like what she saw and it crossed her mind that the easiest thing might be to tear it up and pretend she's never received it. Still, it wasn't really her decision. He was a grown man, he had to see it for himself.

She snapped the folder shut and followed Fury, just in time to catch him saying goodbye to Sam and Steve.

"You should be honoured." She smiled. "That's about as close as he gets to saying thank you."

Steve walked over to her. "Not going with him?"

"No." She felt suddenly free, like a weight had being lifted off her shoulders.

"Not staying here?" Steve sounded almost hopeful.

She shook her head. "I blew all my covers, I gotta go figure out a new one."

"That might take a while."

"I'm counting on it." A while was exactly what she needed. "That thing you asked for? I called in a few favours from Kiev." She held out the file to Steve and he took it. He gripped it, staring at the cover, his face grim. She wanted to see him smile again before she left. "Will you do me a favour? Call that nurse."

She got her reward.

"She's not a nurse."

"And you're not a SHIELD agent."

"What was her name again?" he asked.

"Sharon." She remembered what Fury had said. "She's nice."

Steve smiled a little sadly and looked back at the file. Natasha had the sudden sinking feeling that she wasn't going to be seeing him again and it chilled her. She reached out and grabbed the sleeve of his jacket, drawing him in. He looked at her confused, but leaned forward. She gently kissed his cheek, then stepped away, dropping his sleeve. "Be careful Steve." She nodded down at Bucky's file clutched in his hand. "You might not want to pull on that thread."

She walked back to the SHIELD van she'd "acquired" after the hearing and sat for a moment. Usually this was when she'd go back to her room, have a shower, get drunk with Clint and start over the next day. But this time she had no room, no shower and no next day.

She still had Clint, though. She picked up her phone and sent him a quick message:

 _ _Can I come over?__

She'd called him while Steve was in the hospital and explained everything that had happened. He had offered to come up for the hearing, but she told him to stay and enjoy his time at the farm. She had thought about calling Bruce, but it seemed awkward somehow. Steve had spoken to Tony quite a lot, sorting out what would become of the Stark Tech that was being unloaded out of the half-destroyed Triskelion. Stark was back in New York so she assumed he'd passed the info on to Bruce. Bruce hadn't texted her again and their dinner nights and sparring seemed like two lifetimes ago. Unrecoverable.

 _ _Of course__.

Came Clint's reply, followed by:

 _ _Bring beer__.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three:**

She hit the mall for clothes and the grocery store for beer and then hit the road. She was pulling in at the farm just as the sun set.

The kids were wild to see their Auntie Nat and while Clint pretended to be just as wild about the beer he hugged her tight and wouldn't let go for a while.

The hellos over she started signing to him about what had gone down in DC, switching into ASL as they usually did when the kids were around. Clint hadn't needed hearing aids since SHIELD medical had stepped in many years ago, but they found signing helpful in the field and it was already a comfortable way for them to communicate when they didn't want to be understood. Their own kind of signing wasn't traditional, it relied much less on body language and more on context and having known each other for 100 years.

The kids never seemed to notice. Unlike when they spoke in other languages which drew immediate questions, they seemed to not interpret the signing as talking and therefore ignored it as a weird adult thing, but she's hadn't gotten any further than " _ _You wouldn't believe the shit-"__ when Clint cut her off sharply in Russian.

 _"_ _ _Hold it right there! Brat A seems to be picking up the signing lately. I warned Lor they were too smart and we should trade them in for dumber ones, but she was already attached."__

 _"_ _ _Well, she's sentimental like that."__

 _"_ _ _He seems to have learned all the swear words first so I think that nixes about half of what you were about to say."__

 _"_ _ _Well, fuck."__ Nat slipped him a slight smile and he laughed outright.

"We'll talk later," he promised her, switching back into English, just in time as Brats A and B were already asking what they were talking about and demanding to be part of the conversation.

Nat carefully pushed it all from her mind and focusing on just enjoying herself. Laura was out doing an errand and Clint was trying to child wrangle and get dinner started at the same time. Natasha took over with the kids to his relief. Lila wanted to show her all the toys she got for her recent birthday and Cooper was proudly building a cat house for the kittens in the barn.

"He tried to convince me it should be a dog house, but we're still arguing on that one," Laura said, appearing behind Nat and Coop in the barn.

"Auntie Nat, you should convince Mom we should have a dog." Cooper looked up at her seriously.

"Oh, you know your mom doesn't listen to me. She's my boss, not the other way around," she said, turning back to Laura to give her a hug. Laura Barton had this way of looking at Nat like all she wanted to do was take care of her and it made her feel warm and fuzzy. In a world entirely composed of soldiers and almost entirely composed of men, Laura gave Nat a taste of safe, homey, civilian life. Once they had become close friends she could see why Clint loved her so desperately. She was an amazing woman.

They left Cooper to his build and Clint to dinner prep and grabbed a beer on the porch.

"So Clint told me SHIELD was destroyed, that you and Steve Rogers took it down."

"Yeah, it was infected with HYDRA agents, we didn't really have a choice."

"You did the right thing." She knew it was true, but hearing Laura say that still felt nice. "So I guess you two are unemployed now," Laura said, smiling. "Maybe that means you'll actually sit still for a while."

"Heh, not likely. At least not Clint. He'll be knocking down half the house if you're not careful."

"Oh, yeah, I subtly reminded him how shabby the hardwood in the bedrooms has gotten. Hopefully that'll be next on the list."

Natasha laughed and took another swig of her beer. The night was just cool enough, and even the buzz of the mosquitoes was welcome after the buzz of the cities for so long.

"What are you going to do?"

"Not afraid to ask the tough questions, are you?" She tried to smile, but it came out more of a grimace.

"Sweetie, you know you're welcome here as long as you like."

"Thanks." She sighed and looked out across the empty fields. "I don't really know. All my covers were blown and SHIELD is gone so I have nothing left to hide behind. I left DC thinking I'd travel, build some new aliases or something. Maybe find some freelance work the old-fashioned way, but now that I'm here that doesn't really sound that great."

"You two should work together again." Laura tipped her head back towards the kitchen where they could hear Clint's tuneless humming. "He misses seeing you every day."

Nat let a smile play with her lips. She missed him too. "But for what? And as who?"

"Well, maybe you're ready to stop hiding. You could just say screw it and be Natasha for now. It doesn't have to be a cover, it can just be you. And what about the Avengers? You guys seemed to do a lot of good together."

"Maybe...I guess I don't really know who I am."

"It's okay, you're just having a mid-life crisis, we've all been there," Clint joked, coming out of the kitchen wearing a sauce splattered, yellow apron.

"Gah, I hope I'm not that old yet." Natasha put her head in her hands and Clint patted her gently on the back.

"Well, you've probably got a couple of good years left in ya." He reached out and ruffled her hair mock-condescendingly.

"I'm so glad you joined this conversation," she said, smacking his hand away.

"I could tell you ladies were missing me. Dinner's ready by the way."

They kept conversation light at the dinner table, but once the kids were in bed Laura tactfully stepped out to do some laundry, leaving Clint and Natasha alone.

"You know you're going be alright, Babe." Clint came to sit next to her on the couch.

"Hmmm." She poked aimlessly at a pile of lego bricks on the coffee table.

"So where'd the Cap end up anyway?"

She explained about Bucky. "You know, being on the run with Steve was actually kinda nice. He's a good guy. Sam too."

"You could go help them, I'm sure they'd appreciate it."

"Maybe I will. I told him I needed some time, but now that I have it, I'm not sure what to do with it."

"What about Banner?"

She squirmed uncomfortably. "What about him?"

Clint seemed a little surprised. "I thought you two were all besties now. Don't you want to go back to the tower? I seem to recall a phone call where one night without your scientist pal and you were forced to resort to Cheetos."

Nat sighed and knocked over the bricks she'd been stacking. "Nah, it was just a silly couple of months. We were so bored we gave each other Stockholm Syndrome. Fury doesn't give me orders anymore, the job is over," she said a little too fiercely, then she softened. "He's fine now, Stark is with him at the tower. I'm sure the two of them don't want me barging in and knocking over their beakers."

"Alright." Clint backed off.

She was lying again already and she hated it. She was afraid to see Bruce again, to talk to him. The last they'd seen each other it was the middle of the night and they'd been caught up in nightmares and comfort. She'd started to feel attached to him and after her years of espionage if there was one thing she'd learned it was that anything you were attached to could be used as a weapon against you. She honestly didn't know how Clint was brave enough to have all this, Fury's protection or no.

Natasha leaned back and pulled a quilt around her shoulders. "I'll stay here for a bit and then go find Steve and Sam," she said with finality, leaning her head on his shoulder. He put a comforting arm around her neck, pulling her towards him and kissing the top of her head.

They sat up for a while longer, sometimes chatting, sometimes awash in comfortable silence. She had needed this, to feel still for a while.

They went to bed late, but Natasha still found herself up with the sun. She watched out of the window of the guest room as Laura piled the kids in the car and headed off to their school. She wandered downstairs, listening to the chorus of birds outside and the hiss of Clint's shower upstairs.

She was just pouring herself some coffee from the pot Laura had started when her wrist started buzzing.

For a second she just stared at the watch, too stunned to move, and then it hit her: Bruce had pushed the panic button. The other agent was gone. He needed __her__.

She dropped the mug and flew upstairs to Clint's room, wrenching open the door. He was standing in a towel, dripping on the floor while he dug through his closet.

"Geez, Nat, don't you knock?" he joked, his relaxed expression instantly changing to fear when he saw her face. "What's wrong?"

"It's Bruce." She held up her wrist to show the GPS flashing. "He pushed his button."

"He's at the tower?" She nodded. "We'll take the Quinjet. Grab your stuff."

She nodded again and ran to her room, throwing a few things in a bag. Clint wrote a quick note to Laura, still pulling on clothes as they flew out of the house. The made great time in the Quinjet but Nat couldn't sit still, pacing and fiddling with anything she could get her hands on.

She felt like such as ass, letting herself get petty about her relationship with Bruce. It wasn't about their awkward tentative friendship – she had promised to protect him and she'd let him down. Whatever trust she'd earned at the tower was shot now. He'd probably been wondering why she hadn't contacted him since the Helicarrier crash.

 _ _It's your home too,__ he had said. What if he'd been waiting for her to come home? He told her the other agent had bailed when SHIELD came down and it had never crossed her mind that after six plus months of having a bodyguard, he might get nervous without one. She'd felt like such a burden on him when she was there, but he never treated her like one. She'd taken his radio silence to mean he was fine without her; after spending so much time with Steve she'd forgotten not everyone is as blunt and open as Captain America.

When they finally touched down she flew out of the jet, leaving Clint to get it put away.

"JARVIS, I need an elevator!"

"Certainly, Miss Romanoff." By the time she reached the elevators, one was already waiting for her with open doors.

"Take me to Bruce." They binged shut and began taking her down to Tony's lab. Not sure what she was going to find, she pulled her gun and pressed her back against the button array, hiding herself from view.

The doors opened and for a second all was quiet, then she heard Tony's voice. "Hey, JARVIS, are you playing tag with the elevators again?'

She shook her head and lowered her gun, stepping around the wall and into the room. Tony was standing in the middle of the lab surrounded by broken glass. Several tables were tipped over and there were spills and broken equipment lying around. Tony seemed oddly relaxed, but she'd come to realize that didn't mean much. The more relaxed he seemed, the more likely something was on fire. Natasha walked up to him, taking in the destruction.

"Agent Romanoff!" he said, in surprise, when he saw her. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Where is he?" she interrupted, looking around.

Tony started to say "Where's who?" but then a familiar voice called out from behind her.

"Natasha?"

She spun around to see Bruce walking out of the bathroom, wiping grease off his hands with a towel.

"Oh," said Tony, raising an eyebrow and going back to digging through the mess. Natasha ignored him, walking around an overturned lab table to stand in front of Bruce.

"You're okay," she breathed.

"Yeah, I'm fine – I just. You came." He looked stunned. "How did you get here so fast...?"

"Quinjet. Of course I came. You pushed your button."

"Oh, yeah I guess I did. I didn't even know if it was still working, but I guess the instinct to push it is still there. When I panic."

"Why was there panic? What happened here?" She looked him over more closely. "Are you sure you're okay?"

He just stared at her for a second as if wondering if she were real, but Tony stepped in. "Looks like a fly-by shooting. I thought security was tighter than this, but these were not normal bullets. They took out a good portion of the wall and did a hell of a number on my workshop."

She finally noticed that two of the large windows were blown out and the wall opposite was littered with disturbingly large bullet holes. Bruce was covered in grease and drywall dust.

"You were here when this happened? You didn't turn green?" she asked Bruce.

"Yes, I was. And no, I didn't." He seemed surprised, but pleased. "I kinda thought I would, but then..." He coughed nervously and twisted the towel around "-then it was okay. I guess I'm getting used to being shot at." His eyebrows creased at the thought. "I don't know if that's a good thing..." he said quietly, more to himself than anyone else.

Natasha took two deep breaths and sat down in one of the only chairs that remained upright. "Geez, Doc, give a girl a heart attack."

"I'm sorry." He looked mortified.

"I'm kidding, Bruce. I'm just glad you're the right colour." She smiled up at him, realizing just how glad she really was. Ever since seeing Steve awake again in the hospital she had felt smiles coming more easily to her all the time. Bruce looked a little stunned and still a fair amount of confused, which just made her smile more.

Clint arrived and got the same run down. Bruce went up to shower while the two helped Tony pick through the rubble – looking for clues and anything worth saving.

Tony ran through a few security protocols and did a lot of brow creasing and muttering to himself. With a sudden concerned look he marched over to a blank wall and typed a long code into what looked like a thermostat.

The panel beeped and blinked and then the whole wall starting to shift open, collapsing against itself as it moved, to slide seamlessly behind the now open doorway. Inside was a long hallway lined on either side by large open cupboards, lit softly with red lights. In each cupboard stood an Ironman suit.

"Wow." Clint stepped up behind Tony. "It's like a walk-in closet for armoured suits. What does Pepper keep in hers?"

"An unholy number of shoes. Her collection is probably worth more than mine." Tony began checking over each suit. "Everything in here looks fine."

"I thought you stopped making so many suits after they all got destroyed last year." Natasha started walking down the hall, examining the suits. Each one was vastly different from the others, some looked sleek, others bulky. Some had bracelets, belts or headsets they connected to. One was just a briefcase.

"There are twenty slots, and twenty suits now. No more, no less. One gets broken, I fix it or remake it, but this is it. They each serve a function. I promised Pepper I would stop creating them obsessively, but a man's still got to protect himself, right?" Tony held his hands out imploringly, then hastened over to stop Clint from picking up the briefcase. "Please don't touch the suit case, it's a little, ahh, __twitchy__ still."

Clint's hand retreated from the handle, eyeing it cautiously.

They picked their way through the mess, looking for anything that might lead to an explanation. Clint was able to dig a few bullets out of the wall and Tony tucked them in his pocket to examine later.

Feeling a little shaken from her sudden return to the tower, Natasha left the boys to clean up and went upstairs to her old room. Everything was disturbingly untouched and it reinforced the idea that they had expected her to return. Instead of making her feel better, that just made her feel more guilty.

Tipping backwards on to the bed she lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling. Maybe she didn't need a plan after all, there always seemed to be something popping up somewhere. Stark and Banner could use her help here, so maybe she should stay. If Steve and Sam needed help at some point, half of the Avengers would already be gathered here in New York

Nat found herself hanging around the kitchen at dinner time, hoping Bruce would show and she wouldn't have to go hunt him down. She didn't have to wait long.

"Hey!" He always sounded like he was pleasantly surprised to see her, even back when they were the only two people in the tower.

"Hey, Doc." His hair was all wet and there was a spot of grease on his neck that the shower had missed. Natasha got up and grabbed a paper towel. Standing close in front of him she reached up and wiped the grease away, giving him a cheeky half smile. "How'd you ever get by without me?" she teased.

He swallowed, looking a bit deer-in-headlights. "I really have no idea."

They just stood there for a moment. "Hungry?" Natasha asked, finally.

"What?" He looked around blinking like he'd forgotten where he was.

"Do you...wanna eat?" She gestured at the fridge awkwardly. She was worried they wouldn't be able to recover the easy comfort they'd had only a short time ago.

Luckily he nodded and they fell back into an easy rhythm of getting food ready. Part way through pulling the seeds out of a pomegranate Natasha stopped and turned to Bruce.

"I'm sorry I didn't call you after the Helicarrier crash. I knew Steve had talked to Tony so I figured he'd passed everything on to you."

"It's okay. He did."

"But yeah, I'm still sorry."

"I figured you probably had a lot to take care of. I heard there was a hearing..."

"It was nothing. A bunch of scared politicians with sticks up their asses."

"So everything's okay now? What are you going to do?"

"I don't know...maybe I'll just hang out here for a while?" she suggested, trying to make it sound casual. "I could help figure out why you're getting shot at."

"Oh yeah, that would be...-" he paused glancing over at her, "-good..."

"Okay, good." She resumed her pomegranate dissection.

"So, um, now that SHIELD is gone..." She glanced over at him when he trailed off. He had his panic button fob in his hand and was turning it around and around between two fingers. Finally he held it out to her. "I guess I should give this back to you."

She reached out her hand but instead of taking the fob she pushed his hand back. "Keep it. You're not my assignment anymore, but you have a knack for getting yourself in trouble despite never leaving home." She smiled and he looked instantly relieved. She wondered how long he'd been working up the nerve to give it back to her.

"So if I push it...?"

"I'll still come. SHIELD or no SHIELD."

"Thank you."

If she was going to try new things she might as well jump in whole hog. "What are friends for?" That finally got a genuine smile out of him.

"For keeping you from turning into a giant, green rage monster and destroying your home city?" he joked.

"Yup." They went back to cooking.

"You know, that's how I kept from changing this morning, at the shooting."

"What do you mean?"

"It was you- I mean, I just remembered the-" His sentence careened around wildly as he tried to figure out what to say, a wicked blush blooming up his neck. "When it started I panicked first, and I pushed the button, but then I thought it probably wasn't active anymore, but it reminded me of that day, with the beaker?" Natasha nodded, as if she would ever forget that. "Well, I thought about how you had come in and calmed me down. It reminded me that it is possible not to change. And I didn't."

"Wow." She was genuinely amazed. "That's incredible."

"Yeah I was pretty..." He waved his hands around wildly, not able to find a word for how he had felt. Natasha laughed gently and they slipped back into silence.

After a long period of quiet, Bruce spoke up suddenly, looking much more relaxed now. "I thought your hair was naturally curly."

"What?"

"It was curly last time I saw you. Now it's straight."

"Oh yeah. I guess I left my curling iron here while I was gone. I didn't even notice." She stretched up onto her toes to look at her reflection in the microwave door. "Which is better?"

"Umm, they're both good." He blushed again.

"C'mon," she pressed. "If you had to pick." She pulled it back with her hands and turned her head side to side.

"I guess...curly? I mean it's probably a lot of work, but it looks nice. Straight's good too though."

She smiled at his diplomatic approach to everything. "I like curly too."

She reached up for a bowl in the cupboard above her and couldn't resist sucking in a sharp breath when her barely-healed bullet wound twinged.

Bruce took a step towards her automatically. "What's wrong?"

For a second she was distracted by his movement, thinking back to just a few months ago when he would have stepped away instead. His early instinct to put space between them didn't seem to have returned despite her absence.

"It's fine, I got shot in DC. It's still healing." She pulled her collar down to poke at the wound and check for bleeding. She tugged the back down and tried to see it in the microwave, but couldn't get the right angle. "Is it bleeding?" she asked, turning her back to Bruce and looking at him over her shoulder. He'd turned white as a sheet, which she knew wasn't a problem with blood. "What?"

"You get shot a lot, don't you?" His voice was oddly flat.

She shrugged, turning back to face him. "It happens," she answered quietly.

"You're really not afraid of anything, are you?" He sounded both awed and terrified.

"Waste of time." She gave him a flirty smile, trying to break the tension, but he was giving her such a piercing look she felt a little odd.

"It's not bleeding." He turned suddenly back to his cooking. "It's healing nicely actually."

"Thanks," she said, not sure what had just happened. A few minutes later he made a joke about the sweet peppers and everything was back to normal. It was a strange time for Bruce to get weird about her job considering he had fought an alien invasion with her, but having no idea what was going through his mind she shook it off and slid swiftly back into their easy, comfortable dinnertime ritual.

Clint and Tony bounced in only a few minutes later and they all ate together, Nat taking the opportunity to catch the two lab rats up on what went down in DC.

 **XXX**

The next morning Natasha found herself reaching for the curling iron with a smile.

When she came down to breakfast she was surprised to find Steve already there, sitting with Tony and Bruce and in the middle of discussing the shooting.

"Hey, Natasha. So much for a long time, right?" Steve smiled at her warmly and she couldn't help but smile back.

"Hey, Cap. I guess you and I just couldn't resist the pull of Stark Tower," she drawled. "Sam with you?"

"Nah, he's in Africa right now...following up on a lead." He looked back down at his papers and she decided to leave it at that. She'd told Clint about Steve's search for Bucky, but she wasn't sure if Steve wanted the whole team in on it.

Tony clapped his hands together, happily. "Looks like we've assembled the Avengers. All we need now is Weather Boy and we'll be back to fighting crime and taking names."

"I thought Thor couldn't come back to Earth?" Bruce said and Tony shook his head.

"Just heard from Jane last night. Apparently she has been to Asgard – what I wouldn't give to get my hands on some of their technology – anyway, it seems the bifrost is repaired and Thor was able to get to Earth pretty easily. And, get this, Loki is dead."

"Well, I can't say I'm upset about that." Clint's voice came from behind her.

"Looks like Thor's going to be spending a little more time down here and a little less time hanging out with his crazy god friends in space." Tony continued. "Something about abdicating the throne, disappointing his family, being in love with Earth, or Jane, or Twinkies. I'm not sure, Darcy took over halfway through and she wouldn't shut up about her boyfriend. Hank."

"Ian." Steve corrected, without looking up from the Tower security footage.

"That's what I said. Anyway, they're all in London for a while, Jane's got some cool research going on with interdimentional portals and gravimetric spikes. Thor said if we need him, all we have to do is call."

Steve finally looked up from the tablet screen, eyebrows creased. "Tony, why does the footage cut in and out right before the shooting?"

"Noticed that too, huh? It's only for a second, but when it comes back on something is screwy. I think they found a way to shut down the security system, or confuse JARVIS temporarily. He's kinda fuzzy on what happened. He keeps insisting there was no security breach despite the large, gaping hole in my tower."

Bruce clicked his pen nervously. "Sorry I don't remember more. I was kinda...occupied."

"No worries, buddy." Tony gave him a clap on the back, making Bruce flinch. "Better you focus on not tearing my lab apart. The Hulk may have saved my life once, but he's got a brute-force approach that doesn't do well in glass houses."

Bruce ducked his head, a cross between a grimace and a smile taking up confused residence on his face. Natasha sat down gracefully at the end of the table, next to Bruce, and lightly touched her fingers to his arm before grabbing a muffin from the box in the middle of the table. Bruce's expression slipped a little closer to a smile and he leaned back more comfortably.

Once Clint sat down with his coffee, Steve stood up and looked at them. "Since we're all here now, I have something to tell you." Everyone quieted down and looked up at him. "While Sam and I were, uh, looking into the Winter Soldier that attacked us in DC we came across some worrying information. Natasha, Sam and I thought that when we took down SHIELD we took down HYDRA too. Pierce was dead, the Zola AI was destroyed and Insight had been stopped. Unfortunately it looks like that might not be the case. HYDRA had their fingers in more than one pie and there are trails of theirs spreading much farther than the Triskelion, farther that the US even. We found some intel that suggests there might be a base in operation right now in northern Canada. HYDRA may have infected SHIELD, but they weren't the only host. They're without organization or direction, but it seems they live on."

"Cut off one head, two shall take its place," Tony muttered, an ironic edge to his voice.

"Even worse, Loki's scepter wasn't recovered after the Triskelion went down and there are some murmurings that a few of the higher-ups at SHIELD took off with artifacts. I know we weren't sure if we were going to team up again, but if anything deserves our time, it's this. They're just going to keep growing if we don't shut them down now. DC must have been a big hit, we need to give them another one. I've been talking to Maria Hill and she's willing to help us out."

There was a pause while everyone considered what was ahead of them.

"I'm in." Tony spoke with a hard finality Natasha wasn't sure she'd heard from him before. She wondered if Steve had told him that Zola had admitted to HYDRA being the cause of Tony's parents' deaths.

Natasha looked up at Steve and nodded. "Wouldn't want to waste all our hard work, Cap. Job's not finished. I'm in."

Clint nodded too.

Bruce fiddled more determinedly with his pen cap when he noticed everyone was looking at him. "Well, I mean, I'm all for it. We should definitely try to eradicate HYDRA. I can, um, I can do research, medical... I, uh..I don't think-"

"It's okay, Banner, that's great, we'd really appreciate your help here, there's a lot of data to go over, things I don't understand." Steve spoke confidently.

Bruce gave him a little nod.

Their little ragtag team had a mission and Natasha was surprised by how good that felt. The vast openness of life without SHIELD suddenly looked like it might be purposeful after all. Who knew what was happening after, but for now she had a goal.

Tony dove into inventing and Steve, Bruce, Natasha and Clint dove into intel. By the end of the month they each had a set of new tech and they had a pretty good idea of where they were going and what they would find there. Tony and Bruce kept working on the security footage, trying to figure out what had gone wrong, but to no avail. They replaced the glass and soon Tony's workshop was back to normal – or at least what qualified as normal for Tony Stark. One day JARVIS' gentle voice broke Natasha out of her HYDRA research.

"Miss Romanoff?"

"Yes?"

"Mr. Stark would appreciate it if you could meet him in his workshop. He has something to show you."

"Thanks JARVIS, I'll be two minutes." Natasha dropped her laptop and made her way to the elevators. Tony was elbow deep in one of his suits, covered from head to toe in grease and ... something. His hair stuck up wildly and she heard a few bars of Black Sabbath before JARVIS turned the music off.

"The Black Widow!" He extracted himself from the suit and grabbed for a different tool. There was a strange tone to his voice that she couldn't place.

Natasha regarded him carefully. "JARVIS said you had something to show me?"

"Oh yeah, they're on the table by DUM-E. I amped up your Widow's Bites a bit and switched some things around. I'm hoping to develop a fully electrified tac suit, or maybe just partially cause that could get a bit hinky. Not sure, but it's going to be cool. Maybe it'll even light up, I get sick of being the only who glows blue." Tony stuck his head back inside the chest piece. "I put a training mode on there for sparring so you don't knock Rogers out by accident."

Nat picked up the weapons and turned them over in her hands. They were lightweight and sleek. Much more sophisticated than the last model. "Thanks." She turned to walk away.

"You know you were a lot more fun when you were pretending to be a PA with a crush on me." His muffled voice came out of the depths of the suit.

"Well, sorry it turns out I'm not as in to body shots as you thought," she drawled.

"That's not what I meant." His voice was a little harder now and she turned back to see him standing free of his work, full attention on her.

"What did you mean?"

Tony paused uncharacteristically, like he was trying to figure out how to word things. "You shouldn't feel like you have some obligation to the Initiative. If you're not happy here, you shouldn't stay. No one's making you."

"No one could." She tensed, he seemed prepared for a fight and she wasn't sure why.

"I just can't figure out why you're still here." He grabbed a cloth and wiped his hands off – uselessly as the cloth was even dirtier than he was.

"I'm here to help the team, to be an Avenger."

"Well try to look more excited about it," he drawled sarcastically.

"Not everyone can be as excited about everything as you, Stark."

"Well, at least I'm not an emotionless robot. Actually, no, that's not fair to robots. I think Butterfingers has more emotional range than you."

Tony had a tendency to get worked up about things, but she still didn't understand what he was getting at. "You're attacking me for not being emotional transparent? There's a difference between having emotions and showing them."

"So, what? You're just hiding then? You're really a teddy bear down under all that leather and sarcasm?"

"You're one to talk." She flicked her eyes at the half-dissected suit.

"Yes, yes I am. Almost incessantly and often without any kind of point, but my point here, in this case, is: I don't trust you." His words came out careful and conversational, but she heard the bite under them. "How do I know you're not playing some angle again?"

"I'm not."

"You had me convinced two years ago. You had everyone convinced."

"I saved your life."

He waved his hand dismissively. "I would have figured it out."

"We fought Loki together."

"You were just doing what SHIELD – which apparently was just HYDRA, so really you were just doing what HYDRA told you to do. I've read the stuff you released after Insight, it's patchy at best. I know there's stuff you're hiding. You're probably still working for some government agency. Why should I believe you now?"

"I really don't care if you do." She spun away, fighting to keep her cool, and marched out of his lab.

Their argument stuck with her all day and irritatingly it wasn't out of worry that Stark thought ill of her, but the thought that had wormed into her mind that maybe the others, maybe Steve, maybe even Bruce, felt the same way.

Lying in bed that night, without the distractions of life in the tower her thoughts wouldn't travel any where other than Bruce. She was cold and hard to get close to on purpose, but what if he didn't see a difference from when they first met? What if he didn't value their friendship as much as she did? If Stark didn't trust her, why would Bruce? She drifted off with an unsettling anxiety squirming through her body.

 **XXX**

 _ _Brown eyes set into rapidly greening skin were staring into hers, full of hurt and betrayal. She'd failed him again and now she was going to die...__

Natasha flew out of sleep with a gasp. The air was harsh against her raw throat and she realized she must have been panting through the nightmare. The room was too dark for morning – a quick glance at the clock confirmed it to be 2am.

She lay there for a moment, sweat-soaked and stiff, just trying to breathe and calm herself, but the panic twisted through her gut wouldn't leave. Her hand kept jerking to clutch her watch and reassure herself it wasn't buzzing.

Finally, unable to lay still, let alone fall asleep, she got up and staggered into the halls. The cool air of the hallway did a little to steady her racing heart, but in the dark she still kept seeing the Hulk rip through the wall in front of her.

Her feet carried her to Bruce's room unbidden. She just had to make sure he was still him. She hesitated for a moment, just awake enough to know it was crazy to wake him because of a nightmare. Stepping to the side she let her forehead hit the wall with a gentle thunk, her arms hanging loosely at her sides.

A second later the door slid open nearly given her a heart attack.

"Natasha?" Bruce asked.

"Oh fuck!" She leaped to the side, her heart rate rapidly peaking again.

"Sorry, sorry," he immediately apologized. His hand gently circled her wrist as he tried to calm her.

"Where the hell did you come from?" she asked, grabbing his forearm with the same hand to steady herself.

"Sorry. JARVIS told me you were out here."

"Traitor.." she muttered.

"He seemed to think you wanted to knock, but didn't want to wake me and since I was awake anyway he let me know."

Natasha turned again so her forehead was back against the wall, but their arms were still clutched together. Bruce loosened his grip and let his hand slide down until they were just holding hands.

"Are you okay?" Bruce asked gently and her pulse immediately calmed.

"I'm sorry. It's stupid. I'm fine. I just had a dream..." She let her words hang there, knowing he knew what she had dreamed about.

"Sorry." It really just sounded like sympathy and not like he was apologizing (again) for traumatizing her so she let it be.

"I didn't mean to bother you." She told him.

"I was awake already."

Silence fell and she suddenly become hyper aware of their hands looped gently together. She was just about to pull her hand back when he gave their hands a little swing and asked, "tea?"

"Yes please."

He dropped her hand when they got to the elevator, but stood with his shoulder pressed against hers. He was quiet, but just seeing him human and calm and very not green was bringing her back to reality. When the doors pinged and opened they made their way to the kitchen. Bruce started fussing with the kettle and mugs. Not trusting her hands not to shake Natasha sat down heavily on a stool and watched Bruce putter.

Bruce continued in silence until he set a steaming mug of herbal tea in front of her and had taken a sip of his own. "So what happened?"

"You know what, I had a bad dream." Her voice came out a little petulant and she carefully reeled herself back.

"You don't usually end up outside my door." He was smiling gently, but then he frowned suddenly. "Unless I just don't usually notice."

"No, I don't." She gave him a little smile and his frown evaporated. "I just...I couldn't shake it." She couldn't hold back the shiver that wriggled its way up her spine and she looked intently into her tea, not wanting to see the worry on Bruce's face.

"Natasha, I-"

She held out a hand, stopping him mid-sentence. "Don't."

"You don't even-"

"Yes, I do. You're going to apologize to me. Again."

"Well-"

"No." She finally looked up and met his gaze. "Please don't."

They paused for a long moment, the air tense between them. Natasha struggled to keep her face passive. After everything she had lost lately she couldn't stand to lose her cushy, little scientist too. She tried hard to ignore the fact that she'd started to think of him as __her scientist.__

"Okay." The way he said it was hesitant and Natasha heard the implied __for now__ tacked on, but she let out a breath and took another sip of her tea. It was warm and calming and she started feeling droopy again. She was afraid if she dropped off she'd fall right back into the dream.

"Stark thinks I'm a heartless bitch. Or HYDRA." She hadn't really meant to say it, but it wriggled out anyway. Okay so maybe she'd been a little off-base when she thought that wasn't what was bothering her.

"What?" Bruce actually looked pretty pissed off.

"It's nothing, never mind."

His mouth was a grim line as he leaned forward onto the counter to look more closely at her face.

"Tell me."

"He yelled at me yesterday, Said I shouldn't stay if I don't want to."

She couldn't read the expression on Bruce's face – something hovering between confusion, disappointment, and resignation. "Well, I guess that's true. What makes him think you don't want to stay?"

"Apparently I don't look happy enough to be here." She gave a cool little laugh. "He doesn't trust me."

Bruce stepped forward and sat down at the table opposite her. He set his mug down and leaned his head on his hand, elbow resting on the table. He turned his face up to her. "Are you happy?"

She shouldn't have been, but she was surprised at the question. For some reason it was the last thing she expected anyone to ask her. No one ever had before. It just didn't matter. What was happiness when you had purpose? It didn't escape her that the sentiment sounded a little too close to one bag-of-cats-crazy godlet.

"I don't know. Who cares? I want to stay. I had a choice and I made it. Doesn't that count for something?"

"You deserve to be happy, Natasha."

Somehow the conversation seemed to have a taken a startling turn. For a moment she wanted to believe it. She just wanted to be the person he thought she was. "If you knew-" She cut herself off. __If you knew what I'd done...__ She wanted to say.

"You deserve to be happy," he repeated.

"I just want to be on the right side this time." She rubbed her tired eyes and wiped her hand over her face. "Tell me, please tell me you are the good guys."

Bruce hesitated for a moment, but finally spoke. "We're the good guys. Or we're trying very hard to be."

"Then I'm happy." She knew she didn't really sound happy, but this was the best she could do. For Bruce.

"Then what's Tony's problem?"

"I don't know. He seems to think I have some kind of angle, something I'm hiding from him."

"Ah." Bruce leaned back in his chair and fiddled with the handle on his mug.

"What?"

"Well, Tony told me about the whole Natalie Rushman thing. You know that guy has major trust issues? He's also excellent at deflecting. He would never admit it, but he's a lonely man and his worst fear is that he'll get used to all this and it'll be snatched away. He likes to push on people as hard as he can to see who will stay and who will go. Most of them go. You've seen him arguing with Steve? He grew up with Howard's regret and loss hovering over him like a cloud. He's going to keep attacking Steve, and the rest of us, until he's sure we're not going to bail on him too."

"He doesn't even like me, why does he care if I leave?"

Bruce was silent, just giving her a careful look.

"I have lied to everyone I've ever met, near constantly, for my entire life," she continued. "I was taught that you only show emotion as a tool to make a mark think they have power over you. Clint is the only person who has been in my life for longer than five minutes and that's only because we expect to lie to each other all the time and we don't let it bother us. I don't do this frat house thing." she felt exhausted and more than a little confused. "I- I should let you go back to bed." She rose suddenly, placing her empty mug in the sink and whisking out of the kitchen. She half expected Bruce to try to stop her, but he stayed still and silent, not even turning to watch her go.

She didn't fall asleep again. Just lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling, her mind a churning, ragged mess. She really didn't know why this was so much harder after the fall of SHIELD. When this had been an assignment she'd had no trouble settling in, but nothing was the same. Bruce spent all his time with Tony. Tony hated her. Steve was stressed. Thor was absent. Clint seemed completely fine which perhaps bothered her most of all.

And now she'd probably managed to piss even Bruce off.

She lay in bed and thought and thought and by the time the sun peaked over the horizon she had decided she'd better start with Tony Stark.

Tony was in his workshop. Possibly he had never left. He had something disassembled on one of his work tables that looked like an enormous Ironman boot. DUM-E and U were helping him and he was muttering a constant stream of instructions and thoughts as he worked. Natasha gave a little knock and then typed in her code. It let her in which she took as a good sign. She knew Tony wasn't above having JARVIS lock someone out when he was pissed at them.

He glanced briefly at her and then turned back to his work. "Agent Romanoff."

"Natasha. And I'm not an agent any more." She came in and sat down on a stool, watching his clever fingers flit over his work. He raised his eyebrows, but didn't look at her.

"What can I help you with, __Natasha__." DUM-E swung his arm too close to Tony's hand and he smacked it away with frustration. Looking as dejected as a robot arm can, DUM-E rolled over towards Natasha and poked her gently. She reached up and poked him back, much to his delight. She looked up and saw Tony had stopped working and was watching her intently. "I never should have given them genuine people personalities. Bruce is always complaining about Sirius Cybernetics and I'm starting to see why."

"I never have any idea what you two are talking about."

"That's exactly why we talk in code. No girls allowed." He was quiet for a moment, watching her play with DUM-E. "Why are you here?" His voice was cautious, not as harsh as the last time they spoke. She wondered if Bruce had already talked to him. She wasn't really sure how things stood with Bruce anyway.

"I wanted to apologize."

"For what? For tricking me into thinking you were a beautiful, slightly slutty PA who speaks Latin and not a deadly, trained assassin who could kill me with her pinky finger? Who also speaks Latin."

"No. I'm not going to apologize for that. I was doing my job."

"Oh, okay, well then, for what?" He looked somewhat amused, at least.

"For embarrassing your bodyguard in the boxing ring," she replied, solemnly. "I don't think Happy's ever really forgiven me for that and I always worried that maybe it made you doubt his ability to protect you and I feel. Just. Terrible." She flicked her eyes up at him under her eyelashes and let the corners of her mouth drift up.

Her stared at her for a long moment, amused, but also trying to figure her out. Finally he broke out in laughter. "You are insane and I think my track record makes it clear that I like that. I guess you can stick around. Besides, Happy belongs to Pepper now, I have my own bodyguard." He waved his hand towards the Iron Man suit that stood blankly at attention in the corner then turned back to his work and started tinkering.

"Good. Because I want to." She took a deep breath and leaned back against a work table. "I also wanted to tell you something."

"Shoot." He turned back to his work.

"The eval you saw after the whole Stark Expo thing was doctored."

The armour made a __ping__ noise as Tony's hand twitched and a screw flew in a graceful arc across the room. DUM-E went zooming after it. "What?"

"Fury changed my report before he gave it to you."

"Hmmm." Tony spun around, twizzling the screwdriver between his hands and gave her a calculating look. DUM-E returned with the screw and Tony stared at it in complete bewilderment. "What is – I don't, why would you bring me this?" He flicked the screw across the workshop and DUM-E hummed after it again. "What did he change?"

"I did recommend you for the Avengers."

"Well, you recommended Iron Man cause, you know, he plays well with others, apparently, but, uhh, Tony, on the other hand-"

Natasha cut him off before he could get a really good ramble going. "I recommended both of you."

"Okay...and why would you do that? You were right about, actually about pretty much all of it, my only defense being that I was kind of dying at the time. It's true, I do not play well with others."

"Neither do most of us, that wasn't a factor in my decision."

DUM-E returned with the screw again and Tony pushed his arm out of the way, stalking towards Natasha with his eyes narrowed. She held her ground. "Sooooo, I think you can, you know, probably guess where I'm going with this, but I just have to ask, why oh why did Fury change that? Does he hate me so much he'd do anything to keep me off the team, and- and, if so, why bother having me evaluated at all? He could have just told me he had a spy trailing me for months and typed up a random report himself and I would have believed him. Aren't you, like, seriously pissed about all your wasted time?"

"There was also more to the report," she said calmly, ignoring his question. Tony gave her a questioning look and unconsciously mimicked her stance, crossing his arms and leaning back against the table opposite her. "I added an addendum beyond the usual report structure. I discussed what I dubbed your 'suicidal heroism'."

"Excuse me, 'suicidal heroism'?" There was a faint quirk to the corner of his mouth and Natasha resisted the urge to smile.

"Yes. I felt you had such little regard for your own life and such an intense need to prove yourself that if you became a member of the Avengers Initiative, you would be dead within six months. Almost certainly due to an act of extremely insubordinate self-sacrifice. SHIELD would give you access to intel you would never have come across on your own and before long you would decide to act on something that upset you. I thought you would be an invaluable member of the team, if a short-lived one."

DUM-E chirped excitedly and there was a sound from the table like air being slowly let out of a tank. Tony started and spun around to see the bot trying to put the screw back into the boot himself. A jet of steam was hissing out of a crack between two metal plates.

"Oh for christ's sa- geez, DUM-E, get a brain why don't you. You don't – no, stop it." He grabbed at the screw, but DUM-E seemed reluctant to give it back now that he had figured out where it went. Tony gripped the table, leaning forward until his shoulder popped, and let out an exasperated sigh. Suddenly he straightened back up, smiling at the bot like a slightly insane, and very hungry, shark. He brandished a screwdriver and spoke deceptively softly through clenched teeth. "Give me the fucking screw DUM-E, or so help me god I will upload your AI into a toaster and make you watch while I disassemble your frame one strut at a time. I will then re-assemble you into the robot at the Skittles factory that takes the bags of candy from the conveyor belt and puts them in a box. All. Damn. Day. Long."

DUM-E made a nervous whirring sound and very slowly swung his arm around, placing the screw in Tony's hand and then backed away, very, very quietly. Tony silently tucked the screw into it's housing and tightened it with the screwdriver. He pushed a button and the hissing steam stopped. Placing the tool carefully back onto the bench he turned back to Natasha whose thirty years of training was barely enough to keep her blank expression from cracking. He took up his spot again, letting out a tense breath as he crossed his arms and looked up at her again.

"I was right, you know," she said, looking him in the eye. "We were together for about five minutes before you took it upon yourself to do something stupidly heroic."

"Ah, but I survived."

"Barely. Besides neither Hulk nor Thor were part of my original calculation." She could see the "but why" forming on Tony's lips so she charged on. "Fury thought the best way to keep you safe was to have you be part of the team without actually letting you know you were part of the team. It kind of all went to hell on the Helicarrier, but so do most plans. For the record, I disagreed. If you wanted to kill yourself saving the world, that's your business."

He let out a little huff of laughter, his eyes drifting down to the ground. "Why are you telling me this now?"

"Three reasons. One, I thought you should know in case it was bothering you. I don't want you thinking I never wanted you on the team. Two, I'm no longer with SHIELD and Fury is no longer my boss so I don't have to keep his secrets anymore. Three, I'm trying out this new thing where I make friends and Rogers assures me that honesty is an important part of that. I hear you're shit at making friends too so I thought we could practice on each other without accidentally breaking one of the team members that actually has feelings."

Tony did laugh properly at that. "Oh I don't doubt that you have feelings Romanoff, I'm just pretty sure all the positive ones revolve around knives and electrocuting people."

She gave him her scary grin. "Aww, you already know me so well, we're like besties!"

Tony gave an exaggerated shudder. "That is __definitely__ the scariest thing you've ever said to me." He turned back to his armour, giving it a poke and causing the steam to start hissing out again. His shoulders slumped and he glared across the room at DUM-E who was on his charger with his camera pointed carefully away from his master, examining a spot on the wall with deep interest.

Natasha finally allowed herself a small smile. She turned to walk away, leaving Tony absorbed in his work, but his voice called out after her. "So, __Natasha__ , we good then?"

Looking back over her shoulder she gave him a big, genuine smile. " _ _Placet.__ "

As she made her way to the elevator she heard him yelling after her. "I don't even- I don't know what that means. I'm looking that up! If you just called me something nasty I'm going to switch your bites around so they shock you instead of the – U what in god's name are you doing with that? Put –"

The door slipped shut.

One down.

Two turned out to be harder than she thought since Bruce wasn't in the lab, the gym, or the kitchen. She was just heading for his room when two familiar arms wrapped around her waist from behind and squeezed, pulling her off balance and against the body behind her.

"You're lucky I don't stab you in the face for that, Barton." She settled back against him as he hugged her, feeling him smile against the top of her head.

"Yeah, well I get reckless when I get lonely. I've barely seen you since we bolted the farm."

"Lor okay?" Natasha turned around to face him and he released his grip on her, keeping one arm slung loosely around her waist.

"Yeah, she's fine. I'm going to head over for a few days though. Seems like we could be busy for a while here. I'd like to get some Daddy time in before we get too caught up."

"Yeah..." Nat's mind was already wandering back to her storming out on Bruce last night, wondering where he'd slinked off to.

"Also I gave birth to a baby pterodactyl and I'm pretty sure it's yours," he whispered. Nat just rolled her eyes and gave him a shove.

"Shut up, I was listening."

"I'm going to name him Fred and I will be expecting child support."

"Clint..." Natasha tried not to laugh.

He tightened his grip and started dragging her down the hall with him. "You can have him on half the holidays and every other weekend. Except Steve gets him on the fourth of July because that just seems right somehow."

Now she was really laughing. Clint dragged her into the living room and tossed her on the couch. A moment of digging around later a Playstation controller landed in her lap, followed closely by Clint's feet as he collapsed on the couch next to her.

"Geez, Birdbrain, keep your smelly feet to yourself." He just wiggled them more comfortably in her lap.

"Make me." He flipped on a fighting game and they battled vigorously through several rounds.

"Are you kids going to just sit around playing video games all day? You know, there's a whole world out there." Bruce sounded amused and Natasha tipped her head back to see him leaning over the couch and smiling softly at the dueling pair.

"There you are," she said, more pleasure leaking into her voice than she'd intended. "I was looking for you."

"Sorry, I was napping. Late night." She tensed slightly at his words, not enough for Bruce to notice, but enough for Clint to bring his eyes to her face. He subtly brought his hand down towards his knee in the sign for "stay" and raised his eyebrows at her questioningly.

" _ _It's fine, you go,__ " she murmured at him in German, avoiding their usual Russian. Bruce could understand just enough of it that it made her nervous. Clint hauled himself up off the couch, calling out that he was grabbing a drink from the kitchen, and leaving them alone.

"I'm sorry," she said, as soon as he disappeared around the corner, not wanting to give herself time to chicken out.

He looked up sharply at her words. "You don't have anything to be sorry for."

"I stormed out on you last night."

"That's okay, you were upset." He looked so honestly concerned with her well-being she felt her heart pressing in her chest.

"Yeah, I guess I panicked a little." She smiled up at him.

"Well, I have a good solution for that, but I'm not giving it up, I need it too much." He patted the fob clipped to his pocket and his admitting to relying on her so much doubled the pressure on her ribs and shook her perfect calm.

She was feeling kind of desperate to change the subject. "I talked to Tony. I think we're okay now."

Bruce gave her a genuine smile. "Good."

They hovered there awkwardly for a moment and then Bruce turned towards the door. "Well, I should, uhh-"

"Nah, stay. I'm terrible at this game, we can 2-against-1 and maybe have a hope of wiping that grin off Barton's face."

She saw Bruce hesitate for a moment, but soon came around the couch and settled into a chair. Natasha tossed him a controller and they took Clint to school.


	4. Chapter 4

C **hapter Four:**

After their tiff Tony was significantly warmer to Natasha, regularly walking off with her stuff and coming back with cooler versions. Even her phone and laptop disappeared on a regular basis, only a post-it left behind with _"_ _ _Be back soon – T"__ scrawled on it. She soon learned it was how Tony showed affection – with cool tech – and the team had the coolest tech on the planet.

And they were going to need it.

They started going over all the intel they could find and it wasn't good. There were at least four bases still in operation, including the one they knew about in Canada, and some hints that there might be more. Luckily it seemed that taking out project Insight had really set things back. Without much vision and guidance each base was taking on whatever projects its leaders had been most interested in when Pierce fell. This meant, luckily, that there was a lot of failure, a lot of confusion, and some bases barely posed a threat at all.

After reviewing and reviewing everything Steve finally decided to pull the trigger and hit the Canadian HYDRA facility. The next morning they got ready in silence and piled into the Quinjet with Clint at the controls.

This building was supposed to be a private facility studying a particular kind of bacteria that grows under the ice in the very northern part of Canada. The description of the work was very technical and specific and it seemed there was a university and a few grants involved in funding the project. The tip Steve and Sam got suggested that wasn't really what was going on and after a bunch more research, calling around, and some computer wizardry that Tony and Natasha promised Steve was legal enough, they got their answer: university was a fake, grants were fake, everything about the base was fake.

If hearsay, gossip and a handful of encrypted emails they extracted were anything to go by, this place was actually a HYDRA funded base studying a very peculiar and possibly dangerous substance found at the bottom of a remote lake in that location.

It was hazy, it was unspecific, but it was enough to get their asses in gear and up to Canada.

The flight was a quiet one. They hadn't really had cause to band together in action since the fight with the Chitauri and they were all feeling a little uncertain about how well they would operate as a team. Bruce had agreed to offer support over the comms from the jet, but he didn't feel that he could let the Hulk out again yet. They had sent word to Thor, but hadn't heard back.

The whole lotta nothing that greeted them up north was more than a little disconcerting. They circled the base and found no guards, no security, no nothing. Tony flew Clint to the roof and then made his way to the back entrance.

Steve and Natasha came through the front, a long, empty hallway leading to a huge metal door – the entrance to the lab. Steve pushed the door open and raised his shield as Natasha slipped low and sighted along her gun.

The room was empty. No lab equipment, no computers, no papers, no people.

Clint called, "Clear," from up on the roof just as Tony burst in through the door at the back of the room, his repulsors keeping him airborne as he hovered in the doorway. "No one's here guys, they must have had warning somehow. Or maybe our intel was bad."

"Darn it," Steve huffed and Tony chuckled at his unwillingness to curse, flipping the faceplate up on the armour to give him a look. Natasha patted him on his shoulder as she re-holstered her gun. Tony cut the power on his repulsors and landed on the floor in the middle of the room with a thump.

A low rumbling vibrated through the room and then stopped.

Tony didn't move, but the faceplate on the Iron Man suit snapped shut again. They stood stock still for a long moment, waiting, but nothing else happened. Steve tentatively took a step back towards the hallway and the room exploded.

Natasha was blown backwards against the door which wouldn't have been so bad if 220 pounds of super-soldier hadn't been blown against her. His weight knocked the breath out of her and his knee cracked against her thigh painfully. She almost slipped down the door as she gasped for air, but his arm circled her waist and hauled her back to her feet.

He waited until her eyes met his and she gave him a little nod before releasing her. She still couldn't talk, but the initial panic at not being able to breathe had passed.

The foundation of the building was groaning against the shock and debris was still raining down from the ceiling.

"Status!" Steve called out, holding his shield above both of them as he scanned the room.

There was no answer.

"Barton! Stark!" Steve called. Silence.

"What in god's name just happened?!" Bruce's tense voice came over the comm.

"Looks like this place was rigged to blow in case anyone wanted to waltz in and do exactly what we did." Natasha gritted out, finding her breath again. Bruce made a strange hissing noise into his comm at the sound of her voice. "Do you see Clint?" she added more quietly.

There was a long pause. "No. But I can't see his side of the building from here. His comm isn't active."

Natasha cursed impressively in Russian and Steve raised an eyebrow at her. Suddenly there was a loud crack and the wall behind them bent in threateningly. Nat grabbed the front of Steve's uniform and pulled him down just in time for the bricks to give and the whole wall to burst inwards.

They rolled out of the way of the collapsing wall just in time, but the door falling surprised them both. Steve's left arm had the shield, but it was caught under Natasha's shoulder and without out a moment's pause he threw his other arm up to protect them both. The corner of the immense metal door caught him at an awkward angle and there was a sickening crack.

Steve grunted and slipped forward until the door was resting across his back. Natasha immediately slithered under his arm, bracing her feet against the door and pushing. She could barely move it, but it was enough for them both to roll out of the way. It clanged against the ground as soon as they let it go.

She was panting and out of breath and her legs were screaming from the strain she had just put them through, but she was distracted by Steve's face. His skin was grey and clammy and he was breathing in a very slow and controlled way. His right arm was tucked up against his body in a very un-Captain America way.

"Rogers, you okay?" she asked breathlessly.

"It's broken," he answered, voice clear, more annoyed than in pain.

"I didn't even know you could break bones."

"It's pretty hard to, but that door hit me just right. Or just wrong I guess. The hard part will actually be getting it reset before it starts to heal weird."

"Then let's get the hell out of here."

There was a crackle over the comms and then Tony's tense voice filled her ear. "Hey, guys."

"Stark! Where are you?" Steve whipped around, peering through the settling dust in the direction he'd last seen Tony.

"I'm fine Cap, I'm just a little buried at the moment. There's sort of a building on me, but don't worry, I got this. I-" There was a slight rumbling sound, followed by a muffled repulsor blast and then the sound of shifting brick and metal. All was silent for a moment and then a low groan. "Okay, I could use some help."

Natasha and Steve dug through the rubble until they saw a red and gold boot peeking out from under a length of rebar. It took a while to dig Tony out, especially with one of Steve's arms out of commission, but he and Natasha worked together, with Tony pushing from below, and after a few minutes he was mostly free. A support beam from the centre of the room had cracked out of the ceiling and fallen right across Tony's chest, preventing him from getting any leverage with the repulsors. Natasha and Steve tried again and again to shift the metal bar, but with only half a super-soldier, it was too much.

Steve had just stepped away to call Bruce in when there was another explosion. Nat and Steve instantly hit the deck, but this blast was smaller and more localized, just enough to knock a hole in the side of the building. And standing there in the clearing smoke and dust was...

"Clint?" Natasha asked and he stepped through the hole, smiling. "How the fu-"

Thor stepped out from behind him, smiling widely. "I got your message, friends. I am sorry I could not be here sooner."

"Thor, your timing is perfect," Steve said, sounding relieved. He gestured to the trapped billionaire and together they easily lifted the bar away.

Tony sprung to his feet and clapped Thor on the shoulder. "Thanks, Pikachu, I owe you one."

Nat left them and walked briskly over to where Clint was standing. She regarded him for a moment and then punched him solidly in the shoulder. He didn't cry out, but gave her a pained expression. She tapped her ear in response.

"It cut out, don't blame me, blame Stark, he made the damn thing," he muttered, but she just slid her arm through his and started walking back towards the Quinjet.

Bruce was pacing tensely in front of the jet and when he saw them approach he started forward, then checked himself, waiting until they climbed up the bay door to speak. "Everyone okay?"

"Rogers has a broken arm which he assures me is nothing as long as it gets set soon. Everyone else is unhurt," Natasha reported, suddenly feeling exhausted. What a waste of time that was. The others piled in one by one, grumpy and quiet. Once they were settled, Natasha slid over and helped Steve reset his wrist.

"You've got to stop catching buildings that are falling on me or I might start to think you like me," she joked and he quirked a smile.

"Hey, you're the one who kissed me."

"Fair enough."

Between the two of them they got Steve's arm set and wrapped. He waved off any painkillers – his super-metabolism processed them too quickly to be much use anyway – and settled on a bench at the back of the jet, eyes pinched closed and mouth set in frustration.

Natasha found herself needing to be close to Clint. It certainly wasn't the first time they'd lost each other on comms, but it never got easier. Despite his bravado at the time, his hand slipped into hers without comment and they held each other tight all the way home, Tony flying, and Bruce catching up with Thor.

They filed to their rooms without comment, discarding damaged clothing, nursing wounds and washing blood and dust from their skin.

Natasha was startled out of sleep by JARVIS a few hours later. It was only mid-afternoon but she'd drifted off halfway through getting dressed. It was both pleasant and frightening to be so comfortable somewhere that she could fall asleep in the middle of the day. Her evenings at SHIELD had a careful ritual that allowed her to sleep deeply enough to truly recharge, but without that ritual she slept lightly, on edge, ready to run.

And here she was half-dressed and drooling, passed out at 3pm and by JARVIS' tone, sleeping right through at least one prodding from the AI already.

"Miss Romanoff?" he repeated.

"Yup, yes. I'm awake, what is it?" She rubbed her hands over her face, pulling herself back to reality.

"Mr. Stark has some information to share, he has requested everyone's presence in his laboratory."

It turned out Tony had taken his recording from the suit and run it through every filter and analysis he had access to.

"There." He pointed to the screen while the footage ran through for the third time, none of them able to see what he had spotted. He grabbed the cursor and pulled the player over the same few seconds over and over, back and forth.

"That's..." Thor broke off.

"Yeah." Tony, pointed again and this time Natasha could just make out the faintest blue shimmer.

"Asgardian magic," Steve supplied, turning to Thor for confirmation.

"Yes, it certainly looks that way. In fact, it looks exactly like the particular brand of magic employed by my late brother's scepter."

"HYDRA does have Loki's scepter and it was here. Recently," Steve recapped and Tony and Thor nodded.

"I don't like it."

Thor ran a tense hand through his hair. "Nor do I. That scepter belongs in Asgard where it can be properly guarded. Midgardian hands are not strong enough to control the power that weapon contains."

Clint spoke up from where he perched on a nearby table. "They must have been tipped off. If they were there recently enough that you can still see traces from the scepter, what are the odds they decided to clear out right before we swarmed in?"

"Can we trust the intel we've been given?" Natasha turned to Steve, but he shook his head uncomfortably.

"I honestly don't know. Hill said it was too hard to trace the source, but it was all we had to go on. It's why I waited so long to move on it. I have no doubt that was a trap set up for us."

There was a terse silence then Tony sighed. "But we have to move on it anyway," he finished.

Steve just gave him a resigned look. "We'll give it a week. I need my hand back." He waved his splinted wrist around. "And that gives us a chance to look into this further. If we don't find anything though, we have to hit the next base on the list. We'll be careful, prepare for traps, but...what choice do we have?"

They didn't and they all knew it so they broke up the meeting and slipped away to their own quarters once again, an unspoken agreement to take some time apart to regroup.

 **XXX**

A few days of doing nothing later, Natasha was starting to feel antsy. Jane and Darcy had flown in shortly after Thor showed up so the tower was packed, but she still found herself short on stuff to do. Wondering if their resident genius had uncovered anything new she slipped out of her room and padded down to the elevators.

Natasha pushed the button for Tony's workshop, smiling to herself when a soft Russian folk song drifted from the speakers. Tony's newest pleasure was challenging JARVIS to tailor the elevator music to its occupants. It was especially interesting to see what he would pick when they were all packed in there together. Last time he had gone with "The Macarana" and no one was really sure what to make of it, Tony especially.

When the doors opened to reveal a smiling, brunette woman in a perfectly fitted black skirt, crisp white shirt, and phenomenally expensive shoes, Natasha's brain stuttered for a moment. This was definitely not an agent of any kind and she was clutching a small pad of paper, a pen and a digital recorder in one crisply-manicured hand.

"What?" Natasha said, which wasn't her smoothest moment, but the woman was so out of place Nat felt wildly thrown off. This was her home and her safe-haven and she was surprised to find that the sudden interloper made her realize how relaxed she was here, how much she let down her guard.

"You must be Natasha Romanoff!" the woman exclaimed, her voice sweet and syrupy, but her smile didn't reach her icy blue eyes. "The Black Widow!" Her tone was awed and her free hand skittered around near manically.

"Yes?" Natasha stepped forward to stop the doors to the elevator closing her in again and the woman produced a card from nowhere.

 _ _Juliet Sanders  
Freelance Journalist__

There was a phone number, an email address and a street address lightly embossed below her name.

"Delighted!" The woman held her hand out suddenly and she had a surprisingly firm handshake.

"You're a reporter," Natasha said suspiciously.

"Don't worry. Everything is approved by Mr. Stark. I'm doing a piece for the Times on the Avengers," she said the name almost reverently.

"JARVIS?" Natasha asked quietly, turning slightly away from the woman.

"Ms. Sanders has an appointment with Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner at three-thirty this afternoon in the workshop." JARVIS answered delicately.

Natasha tucked the card in her pocket and just raised her eyebrows slightly at the woman. Ms. Sanders held her gaze for only a few seconds before coughing slightly and turning towards the door to the workshop.

Natasha watched as Tony came over to let the reporter into the lab, all charm and smiles. Nat raised her eyebrows and tipped her head inquiringly at him when she caught his gaze.

He glanced back and saw the woman making her way over to a very uncomfortable looking Bruce so he leaned out the door and said quietly to Nat, "thought we could use some good publicity. We're working on some cool stuff in here, might sway some people into the pro-Avengers camp. I set it up ages ago, but since we're on a break anyway." He shrugged.

Natasha hummed questioningly, looking over Tony's shoulders at the woman. She was all over Bruce who had shut down as much as possible, arms tensely folded across his chest, leaning back away from her. Both Tony and Nat recognized regular, safe, Bruce-awkwardness so they shared a little chuckle as the woman leaned onto the table next to him and fluttered her eyelashes.

'Think I can get Banner a date?" Tony joked.

"She looks more like The Big Guy's type," Natasha drawled scathingly.

"Why Natasha, is that jealously I hear? I didn't think your beautiful, Russian mouth could say such hateful things." He put his hand to his cheek in mock-offense.

She blinked cheekily at him and smirked. "Oh you have no idea."

"Be still my heart." Tony's hand fell to his chest. She saw his fingers automatically tap where the arc reactor used to be and then halt suddenly when it wasn't there. He gave her a brilliant grin. "Better get to it. Don't worry, I'll bring your boyfriend back in one piece."

"Do I get any say on what color that piece is?" she asked, ignoring his choice of descriptor. Bruce was desperately trying to distract the reporter with a piece of the Iron Man suit, but she kept clutching at his arm.

Tony just laughed and shut the door. She watched them for a minute as Tony gracefully pulled the woman's attention to him. Bruce breathed a sigh of relief and then caught Natasha watching them through the glass. He gave her a little smile and she smiled back, mouthing, "good luck," before heading back to the elevator.

She made her way down to the big kitchen instead, hoping for a grilled cheese only to find Steve, his arm still wrapped in a splint, and Thor, wearing a much too tight t-shirt and pink sweat pants that said, "Property of Culver University," across the butt, staring disconsolately at the microwave.

"I do believe you have to push this yellow button first," Thor said uncertainly.

Steve poked at the interface and it beeped a few times, but didn't start. "I don't understand why Tony has to keep changing all the appliances, I just had the last one figured out."

This was turning into a weird-ass day.

Natasha turned quietly on her heel and walked out before the-man-out-of-time and the Norse god could ask her for help heating up a hot pocket.

She spent the rest of the day in the gym. Alone.

 **XXX**

Luckily the next lead they followed was a good one, whether by luck or purpose, and as soon as they were all fighting fit, they hit it hard. It was the smoothest they had ever worked together. Bruce called info from the Jet, Thor and Tony provided air support and moved Clint from perch to perch while Natasha and Steve came in hard on the ground. The base was decimated in under an hour.

With stacks of new files to go through and several prisoners turned over to Hill to interrogate they charged ahead, seeking out their next target.

Being part of a team like this one was something Natasha wasn't sure she would ever get used to. At SHIELD (and even more so with the KGB) it was always about the mission. Sure they took care of their own, but there was a higher cause (one she'd been stupid enough to believe in) and every agent was expected to be willing to take a bullet to uphold that cause.

The Avengers had a cause too, but Steve had a way of making it seem like the only bullets they were expected to take were for each other and that inspired a dedication to the cause more than anything she'd ever seen. I mean Tony freaking Stark had been willing to die to protect New York and that was before the Avengers had even really come together.

They felt like equals. Though they all agreed that Steve was the boss, he acted more like a mission lead than a commander. He never asked her to do a mission without knowing why and he never asked anyone to do anything behind another's back.

It had also started to cause a pleasant shift in her relationship with Clint. The mission had always come first and whatever they had between them came second. She loved him, she always had, but there was definitely a time when she would have been able to put a bullet in his head if she thought it would save the world. Now, she wasn't so sure.

They had fought a thousand battles together. They had pretended to be everything: married, brother and sister, coworkers, strangers, even enemies. Once Clint had broken her arm to keep in good with a mark and all she'd been was relieved it had worked. The next day they were back to drinking to a mission well done, he even drew inappropriate things on her cast when the pain killers knocked her out.

Now they were both seeing a new kind of teammate. Rogers was a solider, not a spy. He fought with conviction, not lies and she liked that. She wasn't sure she'd ever really be able to master it, and it's not like her ability to deceive didn't regularly come in handy, but she could admire it and seek it out more off the battlefield.

She felt comfortable having Clint as her friend now, instead of her partner. The affection she felt for him didn't feel like a risk, it felt like a warm blanket. She found herself giving him goofy smiles whenever she got the chance, which got an increasingly exasperated "what?" out of him each time.

She didn't feel like a tool anymore, a weapon to be shot at her boss's latest enemy, instead she felt human for the first time. Clint had Laura and the kids, Tony had Pepper and Stark Industries, Steve was doing a lot of catching up on the last 70 years, Bruce had his research, heck even Thor had a remarkably balanced outlook on life. Watching the others manage to have girlfriends, wives, hobbies, work and fun made her feel like there was a chance, a small chance, but a chance nonetheless, that she too could have more than just this.

She knew it was changing her. Her usually passive face was lighting up with emotion more often. Her flirting with the guys became warmer and more friendly. She startled herself sometimes with how easy a laugh came out of her mouth.

In her past, security had come from being the best. In this group of superheroes she was no longer the strongest, she was no longer the fastest, or the smartest and yet, for the first time in her life, she actually felt safe.

It took some serious getting used to.

 **XXX**

The loud crash shot Natasha out of bed and into her tac belt on autopilot. Her hand flew to the watch on her wrist but it was quiet and still. Momentarily confused, Natasha paused, her hand resting on the butt of her gun, but when a muffled scream reached her ears she was out the door and heading down the hall.

Halfway to the elevator she nearly smashed into Steve, their superb reflexes turning potential disaster into a graceful duck and spin, getting them both in without wasting time.

"Tony's shop?" he asked.

"Tony's shop," she confirmed. "Scream sounded like a woman, but I don't know who. Bruce didn't push his button so I assume he's still in bed." She fiddled with the watch worriedly, surprised at how strong the urge was to go check on him.

The elevator dinged softly and the doors slid open showing its softly lit and apparently empty interior to the dark lab. Natasha waited, pressed against the wall next to the open doors, eyes locked with Steve's on the opposite side as they listened. There was some shuffling and grunting and the sound of something smashing. Natasha counted, 2...3...6 people, unknown to her moving about in the space. She held up six fingers and Steve nodded. Finally one of the intruders seemed to notice the open elevator doors.

"What da fuck is dat?" he asked in heavily accented English, "Someone come in?"

There was a brief scuffle between them and Natasha made out snippets of at least five different languages, two of which she didn't recognize. There was a lot of what was clearly swearing and repeating of things in different ways. This was clearly not a well-oiled machine. Rolling her eyes she met Steve's gaze again and they silently counted down together. On three Black Widow and Captain America exploded out of the elevator in a fury of pain and destruction.

The window had been blown out again and she could hear the throb of engines outside. The six men had come together in the centre of the room at the first yell and the two Avengers charged hard into their midst.

Despite their lack of teamwork each intruder seemed to be a hard-hitting powerhouse on their own. Two had no shirts on and large wing tattoos on their backs. She wondered vaguely if there was some gang affiliation. She only had one gun with her and she only managed to get two shots off before one of the men kicked her hand hard and sent it spinning off across the floor.

They were unorganized but Natasha quickly found herself taking on two at once. She felt the familiar battle-rush as the dove and ducked, letting them hit each other at least as often as she connected. Grabbing a large screw driver she turned and slammed it easily into the side of one of the men. He staggered back against the remaining intact window and she turned her attention to the other man, one of the winged wonders.

He was slower and less agile than his partner and she landed several solid jabs to his face, wishing desperately that she'd grabbed her bites on the way down. Behind her Steve was battling vigorously with the other four. She heard a crack and saw the other shirtless guy fall to the ground, grabbing his nose. She pushed her assailant and he flipped backwards over a table.

Moving towards Steve to help him out she saw movement from the guy she'd stabbed in the corner. He yelled something at the shirtless guy with the newly broken nose and they ran towards each other, meeting at the open window. She dove for them and reached them just as the tattooed guy grabbed the other's shirt and jumped backwards out of the window. Natasha staggered back a little, not wanting her momentum to carry her out after them. Looking down and expecting a splat, instead she saw the shirtless man floating easily through the air, carrying his partner. Looking like an Ironman suit without the suit, he shot straight into the waiting hover jet.

Okay, so these assholes were enhanced.

Steve finally got a hold of his man and flung him out the window. Apparently they couldn't all fly as the Wingman dove out of the jet again and grabbed him as well. Distracted by them she missed the big blond one coming up beside her and didn't duck in time to miss a solid crack to the side of her face. Slipping to the ground the rolled to the side and struck out wildly with her foot. She connected with his leg, but he seemed unphased. He grabbed her calf and it instantly ignited with pain, heat rolling off his hand and into her.

He grinned manically at her, gripping tighter, enjoying the pain in her face as her skin crackled.

Okay, so these assholes were enhanced in different ways.

Kicking up with her other foot as hard as she could, she connected with the bone of his jaw and he let go of her leg to her immediate relief. The leather of her boot was puckered and melted and she wasn't sure her skin had fared much better underneath.

Steve got a good crack against his man and he went down like a sack of potatoes. Heat Guy saw his chance and dove at Steve, leaving Natasha unchallenged. She saw her gun lying on the other side of a table and she went for it, flipping over the table with a little less than her usual grace, Natasha hit the floor hard and took three shallow breaths, grimacing against the pain radiating up her calf. She could hear Steve trading blows with the Human Oven and hoped he was managing to stay un-burned. Doing a quick side check while she grabbed her gun and reloaded, she noticed something strange sticking out of the shut doors of one of the long line of equipment lockers against the wall: the ends of two, familiar, pink shoelaces.

"Darcy?" she called quietly, sliding over towards the cupboard. The locker door clicked and then opened revealing Darcy's terrified face peering through the crack. "Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine," Darcy managed to choke out, her voice barely a whisper.

"Okay. Good. Shut the door, lock it, stay there until we get you, okay?"

All Darcy could manage was a wide-eyed nod.

The door shut again and Natasha took another deep breath before jumping back into the fray. Sack of Potatoes was still unconscious, but Flame On just wouldn't go down. Cap was stuck in a corner, back against the wall, furiously shoving the guy away over and over, but not getting enough purchase to get a better footing. He managed to get his shield in between himself and each blow from the angry attacker, but it was all defense and no offense. He needed help.

Natasha charged at the guy, gun drawn only to feel her other shoulder pop as Mr. Unconscious came to and leaped up, grabbing her wrist.

Hard.

Despite the pain she used the momentum to pivot back and slide down to the ground, coming up under him and twisting her legs through his. Turning with all her might she wrenched her arm out of his grasp and brought him down hard on the ground. Her shoulder throbbed but it wasn't dislocated completely. Something was painfully out of whack though and she tried to push it out of her mind without much success. Once upon a time she wouldn't even feel the pain until the medbay later, but for some reason she felt it holding her back immediately.

She pressed her foot against his neck, trying to hold him down and he slapped wildly at her. She noticed a bright red tattoo etched across the palm of each hand. Her body was exhausted and she could barely keep him down.

Steve had finally managed to get the upper hand on his goon and with one last vicious smack to the jaw the two intruders decided they had a clear shot for freedom. A giant heave from the guy under her and she went skittering away, unable to hold him down. The two ran straight for the open window, without hesitation. Steve made one last grab at catching an ankle, but to no avail. Both were caught several floors below by their winged friends and hauled into the hover jet which whipped out of sight.

Natasha saw Steve reach for his phone, probably to call Tony for pursuit, but when he saw how fast the were going, he let his hand drop in defeat instead.

Natasha found herself not even caring that they had gotten away. The fight was over and it felt much harder than it had been. Her shoulder was started to *ping* and catch when she moved it and her breath was coming hard. She leaned back against a table and braced herself with her good arm. She felt exhausted. Steve looked at her, concerned and trotted over.

"You okay, Nat?" He reached out to put a comforting hand on her shoulder and she flinched away hard at the pain. He moved to pull it back but she grabbed his hand and put it back gently.

"I think something's out of whack, I can still move it, but it feels weird. Brace?" He responded by placing his hand firmly against the front of her shoulder and locking his stance. He gave her a little nod and she grabbed his forearm with her good hand. Taking a deep breath she leaned first gently and then harder against Steve's hand. It was like leaning against a brick wall, she briefly wondered a) how much the guy weighed and b) if she could take him down in a pinch. She started to smile as she pictured that fight but it quickly turned into a grimace as something went *pop* in a very unpleasant way.

"Ew," Steve said pulling his hand back and making a face.

Nat couldn't help but laugh, partially at his expression and at the relief that followed the pain of the resetting. "You're such a wuss."

"You should respect your elders more, Romanoff," he joked.

"Are you really my elder if you were asleep most of the time?" Back in one piece Natasha trotted over to the storage lockers, pushing aside a table that blocked the door. She knocked softly on the closed cupboard.

'Who is it?" came Darcy's strained voice.

"It's Nat and Steve," she answered, rolling her eyes up to Steve. The door clicked and opened and Darcy pushed her way out of the cupboard wide-eyed and clutching her phone.

"Oh my god, that was insane, you guys. I've been live-tweeting it. I mean I just came down to put some stuff away for Mr. Stark and then all these zombies show up and try to eat me. I'm so glad you guys came cause I'm okay at the hiding and stuff, but man it was getting tight in there and I really have to pee."

"Zombies?" Steve echoed.

"Totally. It was wild. I tried to post pictures but the slits in the locker are really small and they came out all blurry. Here.." she trailed off as she started flipping through her phone and Steve took the opportunity to grab her shoulders and start steering her towards the elevator, raising his eyebrows at Natasha.

Ten minutes later they were all assembled in the kitchen. Bruce was rubbing sleep from his eyes in a t-shirt and sweatpants. Natasha was pleased to see his panic button clipped to his pocket. Tony was wearing pajama pants with tiny ironmen all over them, a black tank top and sunglasses, and looked surprisingly chipper. Thor and Jane were looking equal parts put-out and concerned, and kept glancing at each other. Nat grinned into her coffee wondering what they'd interrupted. Clint was mainlining coffee, staring into the cup in a dazed sort of way. Nat noted with some amusement that since baby number two had been born, the once ready-for-anything-anytime Clint was no longer a morning person.

Darcy had been revived by a trip to the bathroom, a plate of pizza rolls and a milkshake, and was ready to talk.

"So, um, Darce? You said you were attacked by zombies?" Steve started.

"Yeah, it was so weird, they were all __braaiiins, we need the braiin__. I shoved the one guy and hid in the locker-"

Natasha cut her off before she could start babbling again "Start at the beginning and tell us everything. What they said and what they did."

Darcy took a deep breath and put her phone down solemnly which caused everyone to look up in surprise.

"Okay. I had a bunch of articles that Mr. Stark let me read about, like, science and stuff and I finished them so I thought I'd take them back to the lab. I was just putting them in the cupboard and there was this huge smash and the window just broke everywhere." Tony's forehead creased and he grabbed a nearby tablet and started bringing up JARVIS' security logs.

"These guys came in and, like, swarmed the place. The one guy kept saying, 'find the brain, we need the brain'. I tried to hide, but I backed into the magne-" Darcy paused, glancing concernedly at Tony who raised his eyebrows and lowered the tablet. Darcy swallowed. "-a thing and it, um, crashed a little." Tony winced, but kept his mouth shut. "They heard me and one guy came at me so I screamed and pushed him. He seemed kinda surprised - I'm spry even though I don't look it – so I ducked down and backed into a locker. The lockers have a code to open, but you can flip the little thing from inside so I locked it and I waited. They yelled about the brain some more and talked in some crazy language and then Nat and Steve showed up and totally kicked their asses. Good job, by the way guys, very superhero." Darcy gave them a little applause then sucked down the rest of her milkshake, looking expectantly at the team over her straw.

"They were enhanced too," Steve spoke up. "One was unbelievably strong, two could fly, one could generate heat with his hands. The other two I'm not sure about, but they all had weird tattoos. The two that could fly had wing tattoos on their backs. I'm wondering if that had something to do with it."

"Heat guy had a fire tattoo on his wrist and the other guy had a gear or something on his face. He went down first so we never got to see his little trick. Last guy had a biohazard symbol on each palm, but he never did anything weird either," Natasha added.

Tony stood and started pacing across the kitchen, flipping through the pages on his tablet. "There's nothing here, no JARVIS alerts, no security breaches...it's just like the fly-by shooting. How did they get through? It's like JARVIS blacked out." He handed the tablet to Bruce who went through the same process of flipping and creasing and "hmm"-ing.

"Why did they want brains?" Steve asked. "Zombies don't exist." He turned slightly towards Clint and muttered under his breath. "right?" Clint gave a subtle nod.

"Not brains," Natasha corrected, a idea flickering to life. "The brain. They had serious communication issues. I heard at least five different languages between them and what sounded like some multi-level translation just to make sure they all understood something. English seemed to be the only thing they even slightly shared and that's being generous. Maybe they didn't mean brains in general. They meant a person...a smart person...the brains of the operation." Slowly they all turned to look at Tony.

"Who me?" Tony tried and failed to look humble. "What do they want with me? Besides the obvious of course" he gestured to his body.

"Yeah I bet it's your pants they're after," Clint drawled.

"Aren't they awesome? I had JARVIS put an automatic ebay alert on any Ironman merch I didn't already have."

"Ooh, can you put an alert on, like, anything?" Darcy asked. "Cause I have this show I like and I just can't seem to find-"

"So," Natasha piped up, her body crying out for recovery. "Kidnapping Tony. We're not a fan, we should probably stop that. If we don't have anything else to do, I would like to go back to bed."

"Tony and I should have a look at the security first. This is the second time – it just doesn't make sense..." Bruce trailed off looking at the screens and typing a few things in. He and Tony were soon deep in conversations about security breaches and what should have been unbreakable glass. They wandered off towards the elevator stopping to argue and poke at what they saw on the tablet.

Jane leaned in over Darcy asking if she was okay, but Darcy shook her off, telling her to go back upstairs with Thor, she was fine. Everyone trickled out one by one, most heading up towards their rooms. Natasha felt a hand on her arm and turned back to find Clint looking at her with concern. "You okay, Nat, you look kinda...limpy"

"Yeah, I'm okay. Dislocations always leave me feeling a bit funky."

"They didn't used to," he said with a smile, but his eyes were concerned. He passed them over her quickly, checking for injury.

"I'm okay, Clint, really. They just hit harder than I expected at 3am." She tipped her head back indicating the two head-to-head in the down elevator. "gotta keep an eye on those losers." When he still didn't relax she reached up and ruffled his hair and gave him a full-on smile. "Go to bed."

"Alright, Babe. Don't let them blow anything up." Clint rubbed his hand up her arm comfortingly before cramming into the up elevator with Darcy, Steve, Thor and Jane.

Natasha stepped into the other elevator, surprised it hadn't disappeared already. After a moment's pause she realized neither guy had a pushed a button, they were so engrossed in their work. Selecting Tony's floor she leaned back against the wall and tried to shake the shivers Clint's arm rub seemed to have activated. The burn on her leg had reduced to a dull throb. She knew she should treat it, or at least look and see how bad it was, but she just couldn't bring herself to move enough to pull off her boot.

Tony and Bruce spent the next hour working on the security breach and applying shields to the window hole. Natasha sat in the corner on a stool letting their chatter wash over her, watching Dummy lift his arm up __whiiirrrr__ and put it down again __wheeeee...__

She awoke to a gentle shaking and kind, brown eyes looking into hers.

"Shit, I fell asleep." She gave her head a little shake and winced at the pain it knocked loose. "Some bodyguard."

"Are you alright, Natasha? You look awful" Bruce went into doctor mode, slipping his glasses on and taking her pulse.

"Thanks, just what every girl wants to hear." But Natasha was starting to feel what everyone else could apparently see. The shivers hadn't stopped and her head felt heavy and muggy. "Ugh." She leaned forward, grabbing the table to steady herself. Bruce quickly slipped an arm around her waist and started half-leading, half-carrying her to the elevator.

"Dr. Cho's in a warzone right now, but I've been known to do a little doctoring myself. Let's get you upstairs and see what we're dealing with," Bruce said. Natasha tried to come up with a quip, or any kind of reply, really, but it was taking all her energy to stand upright. After the longest elevator ride of her life they reached Bruce's lab.

Natasha fell gratefully on the hospital bed in the corner and tried not to groan.

"When did you start to feel poorly?" Bruce asked, pulling together some supplies.

"After the meeting, Clint asked if I was okay..." she trailed off, thinking. "Well, Steve actually thought something was off earlier, downstairs." she thought hard about exactly when the weariness had come on full force. "I guess it started when my arm got wrenched by that crazy guy in the lab. He grabbed my wrist and pulled my arm half out of its socket. Steve helped me set it again," she assured him as he grabbed her arm, concerned, and started to manipulate the shoulder, "but now that I think about it that was right around when I started to feel exhausted. I thought it was just the pain, and the late night and getting old, but..."

"Maybe he did something to you when he grabbed you?"

Suddenly an image flashed into her mind. "Shit. The biohazard tattoo." She leaned her head back against the pillows and closed her eyes.

"His enhancement," Bruce finished for her. "He can make people sick."

"That's what I'm guessing."

Bruce immediately went to work. Her arm was reset okay, but her forehead was on fire and the shivers hadn't died down. He quickly took her temperature and a blood sample, running it through a few tests in some machines the purpose of which Natasha had no idea. After twenty minutes or so Bruce stared at the output on the screen and said, "Huh."

"Huh, what? Am I dying?"

"What? Ah...hmm?" Bruce glanced down at the screen and then back up to Nat. "Dying? What? No, no, no. It's, uh...you've got the flu."

"What?"

"Regular old flu. Fluids, rest, bad movies, soup. The flu."

"Oh. Well." She certainly hadn't been expecting that. "That's not that bad, I guess. I can't even remember the last time I was sick. SHIELD has all these supplements and immunoboosters they make you take. And before that... I don't think I've ever had the flu. Is that really possible?"

"Oh yeah, it's possible. What I'm finding a little less possible is that this particular strain of flu seems only to have appeared in Romania. Until now." Bruce frowned and poked at the screen.

"At least one of the goons was speaking Romanian. It must have been the biohazard guy. I guess it could be worse."

"Biological warfare, my worst nightmare," Bruce mused and Natasha resisted the urge to mention the even worse nightmare she knew they both shared.

"Steve fought with him too, and he's not sick."

"He can't get sick," Bruce stated distractedly, staring at his data. "Super-soldier immune system."

"Great, just me then." She closed her eyes tight, feeling all kinds of tired and painful. The bruises that usually followed a fight were throbbing alternatively with her new headache and the shivers had turned into cold sweats.

"You should sleep." Bruce's soft voice was right overhead and she opened her eyes to find him staring down at her, his data discarded on the table behind him. "I'll give you something for the fever and headache, and a fluid drip just in case. Stay here, it's not worth getting you to bed."

With no desire to argue anything Natasha took the pills and let him slip an IV in her arm. He reached down to pull off her boots and was sent into a whole new tizzy when he saw the state of her leg. The burn actually wasn't that bad under the stiff leather of her boots and the fabric of her tac suit, but Bruce was still pissed she hadn't mentioned it sooner. She let herself dip in and out while he treated the burn and wrapped it up.

Just as sleep threatened to finally claim her she reached out and grabbed his arm, he turned to look and she gestured at the metal fob clipped to his pocket. "Just don't panic while I'm out, okay?"

"Okay, I promise," he replied smiling.

The last thing she remembered before slipping away was his fingers running softly up and down the inside of her forearm.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five:**

Natasha woke up suddenly, reaching unconsciously for the spot Bruce had been touching what felt like moments ago. The light streaming through the windows made it clear it had been a lot longer than that.

She rolled over carefully, blinking against the sun and assessing her state. Her arm and calf were still battle-sore, and she was sure she still had a fever, but her headache had abated somewhat and her mind didn't feel quite so muggy. Finally getting her eyes open she saw Bruce in his chair, a few feet away, fast asleep. His head was tipped back over the back of the chair and his mouth was open slightly, his arms hanging loosely, soft sleeping noises escaping with every breath. Natasha couldn't help but smile, god help her, that man was the definition of adorable.

The lab was a mess and it looked like Bruce had been up late researching the fever and all the latest in human enhancements and biological warfare. Trying to sit up unfortunately dislodged her headache and it started rattling around in her skull again. Her groan caused Bruce to jerk awake suddenly and she silently chastised herself for making noise.

"Hey!' His sleepy confusion turned to pleasure. "You're up."

"Well, half up at least," she joked weakly, sinking back down into the bed. Bruce laughed and handed her a few pills out of an unmarked bottle.

"Those should help, but unfortunately it looks like it's going to take a few days for you to feel better. You just have to fight it off the old fashioned way. We should-"

"NAT!" A very stressed sounding voice echoed from way down the hall.

"Uh, did you tell Clint I was in medical?" Natasha gave Bruce an accusatory glare.

"I had JARVIS send a message for when he woke up, yeah..." Bruce starting twisting his fingers together nervously.

"Did you tell him I was okay and in medical?"

"Umm, I may have said that you would be awake in the morning and he should come see you?"

"But you didn't expressly say I was fine?"

Clint's voice reached them again. "What the- shit-" there was a small crashing noise and one of Tony's cleaning robots bounced off the far wall of the hall. A second later Hawkeye skidded around the corner looking terrified. "What in the- Natasha, what the hell are you doing in medical, for fucks sake, are you okay? That is the worst possible way to wake up and I've woken up at least eight times with a gun to my head."

"Sorry," Bruce muttered, backing out of his path.

Clint charged across the room, opening his mouth for what she was sure to be an excellent tirade about communication and not scaring the crap out of people first thing in the morning and probably a few "I told you so"s about how she looked last night, but Nat grabbed his hand and gave him a look. "Calm down, Hero, I'm fine. It's just the flu."

That stopped him in his tracks. "The flu?"

"Yeah we think the biohazard guy last night must have given it to me." And before he could say it, "You were right, I was already pretty sick by the meeting, I just didn't know it."

Clint sat down on the bed beside her, taking her hand in both of his. "Geez Nat, I can't remember the last time you were sick."

"Me neither."

Nat noticed that Bruce had quietly slipped out to give them some time together and she hoped he didn't think either of them was actually mad at him.

"The brats will have tons of movie suggestions." That got a laugh out of her.

"I'm not watching The Muppet Movie on endless repeat again," she warned him.

His face clouded over. "Thank god. I think I have PTSD from the Muppet years. I'm stunned Laura got out with her sanity intact."

"I don't know, she's still married to you, so maybe not so much."

"Good point."

Clint stayed and they chatted lightly for the next half hour, Natasha grateful for the distraction while she waited for the meds to kick in.

Bruce came back just as she felt the ease of pain relief behind her eyes and the two guys helped her move from the lab into the TV room on the same floor. With a promise to drink lots of water extracted from her, Bruce removed the IV and set her up with the right meds for the rest of the day.

It seemed like the team had come to some kind of agreement that Nat shouldn't be left alone for too long. Everyone kept drifting in and out, bringing movies or food or just to chat. Even Jane and Darcy pulled shifts with her – Jane telling her funny stories about working in the field and Darcy scarring her for life with a show called "My Strange Addiction".

Clint stayed all day, mostly sitting quietly and reading, letting her spend time with the rest of the gang, but there to tuck her in and turn down the lights when she drifted off mid day, or listen to her angry rantings about the discomfort of being sick.

Around dinner time she kicked Clint out, telling him if he didn't go eat, shower and call Laura she would physically remind him about the time he had so much fun in Austria.

She was only alone for about ten minutes when a quiet "hey" from behind the couch drew her attention away from her book. She tipped her head backwards over the arm of the sofa to see Bruce looking down at her. "Feeling better?"

"Much, thanks. I was even pondering eating some real food tonight."

"Perfect." He held up two plates of chinese takeaway.

"Ooh, you're my favourite!" Natasha grabbed for the plate and tucked her feet up, indicating he should join her on the couch.

"I know," Bruce said, in his deadpan way that always caught her by surprise. Nat couldn't help thinking that he was probably a really funny guy before his accident. It seemed like in an effort to control his anger he had dulled his entire personality and she found herself sad for the Banner she'd never get to meet.

They dug into their food and played channel roulette on Tony's billion channel international satellite. Natasha found her eyes drawn to Bruce's face more often than not. He was so engrossed, it fascinated her. The rest of the team always seemed to be looking over their shoulders for the next fight and here was this man whose scariest battle was himself. He still thought the world was a good place. Probably felt he was the worst thing in it, really.

He laughed at something on the screen and turned to smile at her, waving his chopsticks at the TV, and she smiled back. Something about her smile was so genuine and so fully directed at him, he paused, tipping his head at her questioningly.

"You have moo shu pork on your nose," she teased, enjoying the awkward fumble as he tried to get it off.

Yup, there it was. After nearly thirty cold, violent years she was sitting on a couch, with the flu, eating kung pao chicken, totally nuts about a guy.

Which led her to the big question: let him know, or not? She was confident that he found her attractive, and she knew she could make him blush to high heaven, but Bruce was a closed book when it came to affection. He had shut that all down and rarely let it sneak out.

She noticed it with him and Tony all the time. Tony, who felt the need to touch everyone all the time, had needed a lot of time to earn Bruce's comfort.

Though he didn't talk about it at all, Natasha suspected that Stark's time in Afghanistan had left him more than a little messed up and he had this way of grabbing people and holding on like he was going to get thrown off the Earth if he let go. Of course the two geniuses had bonded immediately over computer screens and chemical models, but it was months before Bruce stopped flinching every time Tony put his arm around his shoulders or poked him affectionately in the side.

Now Bruce was used to it, but he still had this way of skirting around things, always on the edges of meetings, standing in the backs of rooms and tucking himself into corners. She may have dragged him back into civilization, but he kept his bubble with him.

And yet...here he was. Sharing the couch with her, her blanket-wrapped toes pressed lightly against the side of his leg. Her patience had earned her these moments, where he forgot to be afraid of what he could be and started to enjoy what was. Maybe, if she took it slow, they could have more of these moments. For now, she could wait.

The pessimist in her couldn't help but add __or maybe you'll all die tomorrow and you'll have wasted it all.__

She sighed and looked down, poking absentmindedly at her dinner. She had to admit to herself that she had no idea what she was doing. She didn't have a lot of positive relationships in her life for comparison. Her deep love for Clint was built on a trust they needed to have in the field. For years they had only had each other to count on and that had given them a bond impossible to recreate. For a long time she thought that was the most she was capable of. She had seen movies and TV shows and read books where the characters fell in love. She knew how to act the part, how to convince a mark she felt that way about him, but to feel it herself had never even crossed her mind.

Sex was a tool, affection was a risk and love was for children.

When Clint had first told her about Laura, she had just been terrified for him. She didn't really believe that he was any more capable of love than she was herself and seeing him try to build this life...it just seemed fake. Like one day he would wake up and remember who he was and want to leave it all behind, but he'd be trapped.

And then one day, in mid-summer, a few years after Nat had been let in on the secret, Laura, largely pregnant with Lila, was washing dishes in the kitchen while Natasha sat at the kitchen table with Cooper, drawing pictures. Clint came in from outside and Natasha watched as he slipped his arms around his wife and whispered something in her ear, making her giggle. It suddenly hit her: this wasn't a mission, this wasn't a challenge, or a game, or a lie, it was just real. Clint loved Laura, loved his children. Somehow in their fucked up world of deceit and pain, and brainwashing he had kept something pure and true.

It had torn her to shreds.

She never told him why she had dropped her crayon and left so suddenly that day, and he had never asked, but every now and then it still hit her like a brick wall. She had learned to accept what the Red Room had taken from her, some of which she had earned back, some of which she would carry forever, but she truly believed she could never love or be loved like that. They had cut her open, mind and body, and ripped out everything they didn't like, everything that threatened the mission. And when she was raw and empty they had poured back in ice, and fight and darkness.

How could anyone ever love that, the way Laura loved Clint? What could she offer besides death and fear and cold? It had kept her distant from everyone for so long.

Yet here was this motley crew of so-called superheroes and somehow they were surviving without SHIELD and somehow she was surviving without handlers, or debriefs and somehow she'd even made friends. And it was new and scary, but it felt good.

So now, sitting on a couch in Avengers Tower she looked up at Bruce and just let herself feel it. It wasn't love – she still wasn't quite sure what that was yet – but it was strong, and it was good and it was electric. And it gave her hope, he gave her hope. Even if he was never ready or wanting to share it with her, she reveled in feeling something real, in thrilling for the future and in the simple pleasure of pressing her foot harder against his leg and releasing a thousand butterflies into her stomach.

Maybe they __would__ all be dead tomorrow, but for now butterflies were a lot better than ice, and she was just going to enjoy it.

The show ended and Bruce set his empty place down, clicking around until he found a channel playing The Terminator. He tossed the remote aside and reached for a jar of aloe he'd left on the table for Natasha earlier in the day. Without taking his eyes off the screen he gently slid Nat's leg out of the blanket and lay it across his lap, pushing her workout pants up until he could see the angry red welt on her ankle. He frowned at it, but didn't say anything as he gently rubbed the cream on her ragged skin.

The combination of the pain of the burn, the soothing cool of the aloe and the thrill of Bruce's gentle fingers was too much and in her weakened state a little squeak slipped out. Bruce immediately stopped and looked at her in surprise. She was sure none of the Avengers (besides one slightly insane archer who was, perhaps, slightly over-involved in her life) had ever heard her make such an involuntary noise.

Bruce winced and pulled his fingers back. "Sorry."

"No, it's fine." She twitched her foot a little at the loss, encouraging him to start rubbing again. "It's just sore."

He said, "Sorry," again, but this time more in sympathy than regret so she gave him a smile and twisted her leg a little to try to look at the burn.

"How does it look?" she asked.

"It's healing," Bruce said gently, taking up his gentle aloe applications again. "Might scar."

She hissed a little at his words and frowned. Feeling her tension he looked at her, head cocked to the side, fingers still stroking her skin softly. She hesitated a little, not sure how to voice her discomfort. "I don't like scars," she ended up saying simply.

Bruce looked pensive for a moment. "You must have a lot of them though. In the time I've known you you've been stabbed at least twice, shot once, and nearly blown up several times."

"Don't forget when I stubbed my toe on the coffee table this morning while on cold meds," she joked. After a moment's pause she went on, "Scars make it hard for me to do my job. My old job, I guess. SHIELD used to have all kinds of stuff to minimize scars. If they got to you soon enough after an injury they could make it disappear completely. I do have some from the times I didn't get collected in time, and from before, but surprisingly few, considering. It doesn't really matter any more, I guess, the Avengers don't really seem to be in need of covert ops much. "

"Yeah," Bruce agreed with a smile, "we do seem to go in for the brute force technique more often than not. Why did scars make it hard for you to do your job?"

"A couple of reasons. Scars have stories, when you're undercover you have to be someone else, but you have to make sure that someone else matches with what scars you have. It's not usual for a diplomat's soccer-mom wife to have a bullet scar on her stomach."

Bruce raised his eyebrows at her. "...do you have a bullet scar on your stomach?"

Nat pulled up her shirt and showed him, just as she had done for Steve in the hospital a few short months ago. Bruce grimaced and turned back to her ankle, the crease between his eyebrows staying firmly in place. "And the other reasons?"

Nat sighed, knowing he would be upset, but feeling strangely strongly that is was important that he know more about her. Maybe if she kept scaring him and he kept being there for her anyway eventually she would trust what they were building between them.

"One of my special skills...SHIELD called it passive interrogation, Clint calls it 'James Bonding'." She smiled and looked unseeing at the TV screen. "It involves letting myself get caught, sometimes while undercover, sometimes as a SHIELD agent, and using some subtle emotional manipulation to get the mark to reveal information. It woks well because the mark doesn't realize they are being interrogated so they have their defences down. They think they're in control, that they have power over you, so they're more willing to give up information freely."

"Wow. That sounds really dangerous."

"It is. My greatest asset in that case is to look weak. A small, crying, scared woman doesn't get her arms tied as tight, gets her feet left loose, all things that help me when I have what I need and it's time for me to go. If I'm covered in battle scars it's harder to convince a mark that I'm not a threat."

"If they have you captured though, there must be something they want from you."

"I always have information to trade, something they think they've wheedled out of me. What they don't know is that I'm the one in control of the wheedling. There's another reason to be scarless, if they think I've never been...uh... _ _persuaded__ to talk before they start with the baby stuff first."

Bruce made a choking sound and his fingers stilled. "Are you saying that you don't want scars because if your marks know you've been __tortured__ before they won't go easy on you when they try?!"

"Yes, basically."

"Oh my god...how many tim- no wait, I don't think I want to know that." He had a tension across his shoulders that she knew well.

"Hey Bruce." She waited until he looked at her. "Don't turn green, okay?" She smiled, making it sound like a joke, but the muscle twitching in his jaw was making her a little nervous.

He let out a shaky breath that almost sounded like a chuckle. "Sometimes I forget just what you guys have all been through. Everything I've suffered through was at my own hands, but the rest of you... what Tony went through in Afghanistan, Thor's own brother turning against him, being stuck in another world completely, you and Clint working for SHIELD, Steve was frozen for 70 years for crying out loud. His entire life went up in smoke. And you guys all just keep going on like it's nothing."

"No we don't," she said flatly. "We're all a bit broken in our ways. There's a reason we all signed up for this shit gig. I can tell you not every agent in SHIELD would have said 'when do we start?' when asked to take on the Avengers Initiative and yet those were my words exactly, Clint's too. We all have things we're hiding from, no one handles this perfectly and the things you have gone through are no less than the rest of us. At least Steve and Clint and Thor and me, we're soldiers, we trained for this. You and Tony are creators, scientists, neither of you asked to live like this."

Bruce ran a finger over her calf again, absentmindedly, apparently thinking about what she said. All Nat could think about was the sensation on her skin. Eventually Bruce just sighed and gave her a sad smile.

"Yeah." Was all he could say, but his eyes were tired and pained. "Living like this isn't so bad."

Natasha smiled again and they both let their eyes drift back to the screen. Bruce closed the bottle of aloe and pulled the leg of her pants back down to cover her injury. He wrapped the blanket around her feet again, making sure the end was tucked in, but left her feet resting in his lap and she made no move to re-claim them.

She must have drifted off into sleep because when she opened her eyes next the TV was off, Bruce was gone and Clint was curled up in an armchair by her head, snoring. She spent the next few hours slipping fitfully in and out of sleep but everything just kind of hurt, her joints, her headache, her throat and she wouldn't doze for more than an hour before waking up again.

Some time around 4:30 Nat tried to roll over in an attempt to get more comfortable when she was hit with a painful coughing fit. The loud noise startled Clint awake and he looked around in confusion before settling his worried gaze on her.

"Sorry," she choked out between coughs and he laughed and twisted out of his chair so he was kneeling in front of her.

"What on earth are you sorry for?" He started gently petting her hair.

"Woke you up," she whispered weakly.

"Umm, yeah, could you save your dying of evil, magic flu for when I'm not trying to get a good night's sleep in an armchair?" He rolled his eyes at her sarcastically. His fingers running through her hair was soothing and the coughing slowly abated.

"I'm not dying," she whined, "Bruce promised."

Clint just chuckled and handed her a cup of water. When she was done drinking he took the cup and slipped down so he was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the couch and looking up at her. She slipped her hand in his and he kissed it gently.

Natasha looked at the soft smile on his face and frowned. "You like me like this, don't you?" she said accusingly.

Clint laughed fully. "Of course I do. You never let me take care of you normally. Plus this way I can do whatever I want and you can't fight back. I could make you eat cauliflower."

"I hate cauliflower." She knew she was whimpering like a little kid, but it didn't matter here, in the middle of the night, with Clint. She trusted him with her real weaknesses.

"I know."

"Plus you know it's you that needs the taking care of." Nat contradicted her statement immediately by tucking her cold fingers in the collar of his shirt to warm them. Clint was polite enough not to notice.

"Yeah that's true. Just let me pretend sometimes?"

"Okay, I guess." She was tired and everything still hurt. "Cartoons?"

Clint practically clapped his hands in glee. He grabbed the remote and switched to the Disney Network. Two episodes of Kim Possible later, they were both fast asleep.

 **XXX**

The next morning Steve called a team meeting, bringing everyone into the living room on Natasha's behalf. She was still wrapped up on the couch, but Bruce had hooked her up with the good stuff again and though she was feeling about 10% out of it, she was also feeling about 120% better.

Everyone took turns fussing over her as they filed in and Nat had to admit, it was kind of nice. Once they were all sure she had all the water, lozenges and blankets she needed, Steve explained why he had called them together.

"I think we should go over the break-in again, now that Nat's feeling better. There must be something we missed."

Tony looked up from the tablet he was almost permanently attached to these days. "Doctor Jekyll and I have been over the security breach a hundred times and we can't see anything unusual. The security systems for the whole floor just stop for 37 minutes. When they come back online, they can't see anything wrong."

Steve's brow furrowed and he ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

"Maybe one of the enhanced was able to turn it off?" Clint offered, turning to Nat. "You said the guy with the biohazard tattoo made you sick, and the guy with the wings could fly. Maybe one of them could control electrical systems like ours."

They all looked at Tony.

"It's possible I suppose. We should look into the tattoos more. Describe them again?" Tony starting typing furiously on the tablet as Steve spoke.

"They were pale red instead of the normal blue/green of a tattoo. And they were kinda raised on the skin. Otherwise they just looked like regular line drawings of symbols."

Nat heard Bruce muttering something about "pale red" behind her and then he abruptly stood and left the room. No one seemed to notice him leave but when he came back into the room with a loud, "Ha!" everyone turned to look.

"Dude, don't frolic around a tower of superheroes making sudden startling noises." Tony grabbed his chest dramatically. "Don't you know I have a heart condition?"

"You're all better now. Sorry, Buddy, you don't get to use that excuse anymore," Bruce retorted. "Also I don't frolic."

Bruce tossed a magazine down on to the coffee table and everyone leaned in to get a look. It was the article that the reporter "Juliet Sanders" had done on the genius twins a few months ago. They all looked down carefully at it and then back up at Bruce in confusion.

He smiled at them. "That reporter, Ms. Sanders, had the same kind of red, raised tattoo."

"What? Really?" Steve picked up the magazine and Bruce pointed out the tiny red line peeking out from under her collar in the byline picture. "I dunno, it's hard to tell, are you sure?"

"Yeah, I remembered it suddenly when you described it. I just grabbed the picture to be sure."

Clint snatched the magazine out of Steve's hand and looked down at the picture. He gave a low whistle and smirked at Bruce. "So how'd you get a look at her tattoo, Bruce?"

God bless Bruce, he blushed to high heaven and on the delightful drugs she was currently enjoying, Natasha had to resist the urge to giggle out loud. Then it suddenly hit her that while Bruce had seemed uninterested in the woman at first, maybe they hit it off later. A cool curl of jealousy twisted its way through her gut.

"She was, um, very friendly," he stuttered out. Natasha frowned and Clint whooped.

Thor clapped his hands together and said, "Well done, my friend, she is very beautiful!"

"Not like that!" He shot Clint and the Norse god a withering look. "She kept..um-" He turned bright red and mimed her playing with the collar of her shirt. "I noticed the tattoo when I was trying to signal over her shoulder to my __supposed__ lab partner to step in and __start the interview already.__ " He gave Tony a significant look but Tony just laughed, throwing his arm around his friend and patting him affectionately on the chest with his other hand. Bruce just sighed and looked up at the ceiling, presumably willing the flush to leave his cheeks.

"What was her tattoo of?" Thor asked, leaning over Clint's shoulder to read the biography below her picture.

"It was a snake head with a long, curling tongue. Kinda scary. I remember thinking it was odd choice for a fairly vapid, bubbly seeming person."

Natasha's frown evaporated.

"So..." Steve was staring off into space, thinking. "If she's involved with the gang..."

"Maybe even leading the gang," Tony supplied, grabbing the magazine and scrutinizing it carefully, "she's smarter than she seems and she wasn't part of the smash and grab team. I wouldn't be surprised if she was more deeply involved at the planning end of things."

"But what does she have against us?" Thor asked.

"Tony," Steve said suspiciously, "did you sleep with her?"

Tony immediately turned and gave him a shocked look. "Moi? How could you even ask that? I'm in a long-term committed relationship with a very creative and surprising redhead and Bruce here-" his finger stabbed the picture of the two of them, "-only has his big green hands to keep him warm at night and you're asking __me?__ Especially considering she was all over him like a chipmunk in a peanut factory. I'm so offended I don't even know what to say." His eyes fell back to the paper in front of him. "Maybe you should be interrogating Kermit over there. Really, I thought you thought better of me, Cap, I am a very dedicated and faithful boyfriend and what's more I – oh wait...shit..."

"Tony!" Steve's and Clint yelled at the same time.

"No, no, I didn't sleep with her. Come on guys, seriously." His finger underlined a particular line in the story and Bruce leaned in to read it.

"Oh...you really think-?" The two looked at each other, Bruce's face twisted with concern.

"Yeah, the way she asked about - the more I think about it, the more I realize just how much we told her." Tony frowned at the magazine.

"But we haven't worked on Veronica in..."

"After the break-in, did you check-?" Tony was already out the door before Bruce could finish saying "no" and Bruce watched him go, staring after him, not realizing everyone was staring him.

Finally, Steve spoke up. "Uh, Doctor Banner?"

"Hmm, what?" Bruce turned back and noticed everyone. "Oh, uh, yeah. I should explain."

There was another long silence and Steve raised an eyebrow at Bruce. He sat down heavily on the couch, the magazine clutched in his hand and started to explain.

"Tony and I have been working on something. It's kind of an all-around Hulk containment/defence system." He carefully didn't meet Natasha's eyes. "Stage one is modifying one of Stark's satellites with a gamma radiation tracker. Stage two is a satellite deployed cage sort of thing which, hopefully, can contain the hulk long enough for stage three. Stage three is a modified Iron Man suit that fits over the armour. It's not finished, but when it is, it'll be the strongest thing we've ever built. We can't know for sure, but the hope is that it could knock him out, or at least slow him down long enough to get him away from civilization." Bruce paused and frowned down at the magazine. "It's all kind of fuzzy..."

Steve looked at him, concerned. "What's fuzzy?"

"My memory of the interview." He stared harder at the article. "Some of the stuff she has here though..."

Tony burst back through the door and Bruce saw the look in his eyes and groaned. "It's gone," Tony confirmed, "Jay, how could you miss that?"

"My apologies, Sir, I understand that I was not functioning at full capacity during the break-in. I have no memory of the incident and therefore no record of anything being taken."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Tony waved him off and sighed, leaning over the back of the couch. "The controller is gone."

Bruce explained. "It's the device we use to activate the gamma tracker. The rest is up on the satellite already, but this piece we were going to install in the Iron Man armour so Tony or JARVIS could deploy her any time."

"Bruce, the more I think about it, the more that tech could be used for some scary stuff. The controller could be modified in lots of ways...someone smart enough..."

"And you guys told her all this? It sounds pretty in depth for a puff piece," Steve asked.

The two scientists looked at each other for a moment. "It's kind of fuzzy..." Bruce repeated.

"Yeah, me too," Tony confirmed.

"Drugs?" Clint suggested and Tony nodded.

"Could be."

"Or.." Thor was looking at the article thoughtfully. "The other tattoos, you say they had magical effects. Perhaps this Sanders' special power has something to do with persuasion, or extracting information."

Tony gave it some thought. "That would make sense. I guess. As much as any of this makes sense."

"So a reporter tricked you guys into spilling the beans on your secret project, organized the theft of a piece of potentially dangerous equipment and then published her article?" Clint asked.

"You make it sound kind of ridiculous when you put it like that." Bruce sighed.

"Well there's an easy way to tell." Tony stood up. "We can lock down the controller from here, but if anyone tries to use it, we'll be notified. I can probably even set it up to track where it's being used from."

Bruce looked pensive. "The gang said they wanted you, Tony, maybe they suspected they wouldn't be able to operate the tech without you and the plan was take both the controller and you. Or even just to take you, and when they couldn't they just grabbed whatever they could."

"Good point, Gummy Bear. Good thing Nat and Steve took one for the team!" He patted Natasha's arm gently and she raised her eyebrows at him.

Steve just sighed. "Well, I guess we just wait then. Tony be extra careful, don't go wandering around on your own, they're probably going to try to grab you again. Let us know if you get a hit on their location and we'll see if we can dig up any more info on the reporter. For now I guess it's wait and see."

Everyone filed out feeling sort of unsatisfied until it was just Steve and Natasha left. Nat was feeling tired again and cuddled down into the couch, switching the TV on to something mindless and soothing. Steve sighed and threw the magazine aside. "Mind if I stay?" he asked her.

She pulled her feet up and he settled into the end of the couch, tossing his feet up on the coffee table.

After a moment Steve tipped his head at the TV and furrowed his brow. "Extreme Couponing?" he asked.

"Blame Darcy," Nat mumbled back.

 **XXX**

A few days later Sam came to stay at the tower for a little while and work with Steve on their "missing persons" issue. Steve was playing it close to the chest, but the team all seemed to know why Sam was there and chose to politely not mention it.

Sam was lots of fun and despite Natasha not being entirely over her flu they all felt the need to have a few drinks and spend the evening laughing and joking, and pushing away thoughts of loss and threat and fear. Tony was trying to teach Steve about social media and was starting to get frustrated when it wasn't going well.

"Yeah, but Captain America is a paragon of virtue; he doesn't have any vices." Sam pointed out after Tony threatened to post Steve's darkest secrets online if he didn't start paying attention.

"Oh yes he does!" Natasha objected and Steve turned to look at her, surprised. There was a pause, everyone staring at Natasha until Steve started to squirm uncomfortably, not sure what she was going to say. "He eats like a freaking, teenage, college student," she informed them, getting a delighted laugh from the whole room.

"More like four teenage, college students," Tony pointed out. "You guys should see the grocery bills for this place."

Steve held a hand up. "In my defense...there is some really excellent junk food in this century."

"Plus you can't get fat, or die of heart disease!" Natasha added, leaning over the coffee table to poke him in his solidly muscled arm.

"That too."

When the laughter died down, Tony turned to Natasha again "so what are Barton's vices then?" his mouth twitched up mischievously.

"Oh he can be lazy as fuck when he wants to be. I used to have to trick him into doing actual work when we were on a mission instead of just sitting up on his perch ' _ _observing__ '" She did little air quotes.

"Hey! Clint grabbed a pillow from the side of the couch and bopped her on the head."We all know which vices you suffer from, Tony." Clint pointed back at him.

"Yup. All of them." Tony tossed back the rest of his drink and headed back to the bar. "Never met a vice I didn't like! There was this one night, in LA, in 2001, I'm pretty sure I actually experienced all of them at once. There was this stripper-"

"Stop, stop!" Sam cried, "We don't want to hear any more about your debauchery, Stark!"

The room was warm and everyone's laughter made it warmer. Cuddled down in her blanket, between Clint and Bruce, Natasha felt safe and peaceful in a way she hadn't in a long time. Her illness had almost completely abated and food and drink had its flavour back. The pressure of Bruce's side along hers felt electric. The urge to slip her hand over into his was getting hard to resist and the thought of the look on his face if she did was even more delightful. The team kept up the discussion, deciding that Sam's vice of, "being too awesome," did not count and trying to pull another one from him. Attempting to deflect the attention he turned to Natasha again.

"Okay, Nat, what's your vice then?"

"Fast cars and loose women," she retorted, deadpan. She was pleased to hear Bruce choke on his drink a little beside her while Sam slapped his leg with glee.

Steve spoke up, "No, actually the fast cars is true. You drive like a maniac!"

"Ok, that's fair. I do like to make my cars earn their keep. Never had a ticket though." She smiled sneakily.

"Yeah I bet you haven't." Tony looked pointedly at her chest and winked. "Never had a ticket, or never been pulled over?"

"Har har, I happen to know you have so many tickets they just use a "Tony Stark" stamp now."

"That is true. I have a big pile of them in a file somewhere. Pepper usually finds them and pays them once every few years or so and then we throw a police benefit." Natasha laughed and threw Clint's tactical pillow at Tony.

The conversation devolved into recollections of their most amusing run-ins with the police. Clint was well into a story about a particularly bizarre and confusing incident he and Nat had in Paris when JARVIS interrupted gently.

"Excuse me, Sir. I am sorry to interrupt, but there was just a ring at the delivery doorbell and everyone else has gone home for the night. Do you wish me to inform that no one is available?"

"Nah, that's alright, JARVIS, I'm expecting a parts delivery for the suit, I'll get it." Tony got up and stepped into the elevator. Clint got up to get another drink and Natasha used the cover of continued conversation to gently nudge herself closer to Bruce, curling her body slightly in his direction. He glanced at her, but she just kept her eyes on her handful of almonds, nonchalantly, and hoped he wouldn't slide away. He seemed to hold his breath for a moment and then slowly let it out, releasing the tension in his shoulders and leaning ever so slightly towards her. She couldn't resist a little smile into her drink.

Tony marched off the elevator a few minutes later with an exasperated look and a large cardboard box in his arms.

"What am I, the Island for Misfit Toys? Why do people keep leaving things on my doorstep. I'm going to have to start putting up posters. 'Keep Out, Superheroes and Amazon Deliveries Only'...he trailed off mumbling to himself.

"What's in the box?" Steve asked

"WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!" Bruce mock screamed waving his hand in the air, trailing off when nobody laughed. He caught Natasha's eye though and she let the corner of her mouth twitch up. Tony was too lost in rambling to catch the reference and Steve and Thor were clueless as usual. Tony had set the box down on the couch on Clint's vacated seat next to Natasha and stalked off to a computer screen in the corner.

The flaps were shut, but not taped and her curiosity getting the better of her, Natasha pulled them open and peered inside. A tiny, furry face peered back at her.

"Mew?" it asked. Everyone crowded around to get a look.

"It's a Tiny Cat!" Thor exclaimed, delighted. "Darcy has shown me many pictures of them on the internet."

"This is not the first time!" Tony yelled from across the room, jabbing a finger in the air to emphasize his point. "Like, just because we're superheroes we can take in all the lost pets of New York. I'm a billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist, not an animal shelter. JARVIS, call the SPCA."

"No!" Natasha surprised even herself by her sudden response. "They'll put it down..."

"He's kinda cute." Steve dangled his fingers in front of its curious green eyes.

While everyone was distracted Nat leaned over to Clint and whispered, "Can't you take it to the farm?"

"Oh no, you're not sucking me into that again. We've already got three in the barn and the little brats convinced Laura we're getting a dog next Christmas. This inn's full. Stark'll find a rescue to take it in."

Natasha glared back at him, but he just shrugged.

"Look, I'll start my own shelter, okay?" Tony said, sighing at the twin sad puppy-dog looks sported by Steve and Natasha, "JARVIS, text Pepper 'open animal shelter', she'll know what to do."

Natasha picked up the tiny furry body and held it out in front of her. His orange fur was long, but shabby. He couldn't have been older than six weeks, but somehow he was all alone. He let all four paws dangle loosely, his eyes fixed on her face. After a moment he gave a long slow blink and started purring. "I'll keep him," Natasha said, with her usual finality. "I'll keep him in my room."

"Really?" Steve asked, "A cat? I always pictured you as a dog person. Like a whole pack of huge, scary shepards following you around."

A loud laugh came from Clint's spot behind her, but she just smiled down at the little kitten. "I have enough soldiers in my life, I want something soft." Natasha's voice was mocking, but her eyes involuntarily flicked over to Bruce as she said it. Luckily he was looking down, smiling at the kitten, and didn't see her glance.

The kitten made the rounds getting cooed at and petted by everyone. Despite Tony and Clint's reservations they didn't seem to mind holding his little body and rubbing his whiskery cheeks. Thor spent quite some time dragging a piece of string across the floor and letting out his loud, booming laugh every time the kitten chased it back the other way. Bruce hung back, shy as always about joining the group, but offered him some lunch meat and tuna from the fridge and petted him gently while he ate. Pretty soon the tiny, orange scrap had worn himself out and Natasha took him upstairs to settle in. She pulled out the bottom drawer of her dresser and let him sleep curled up on a towel. She asked Jarvis to order some cat toys, food and litter online.

As soon as she was alone Natasha felt anxiety creeping up her body to twist in her stomach. What was she thinking taking on a whole little life? What if she had to leave suddenly, she couldn't just abandon it. No ties, nothing slowing you down.

But she did have ties now.

The Avengers. Her promise to Bruce. Her friendship with Steve. Even New York had started to feel a little like something she had only barely felt before. Something she thought was probably "homey". The last time she had felt even close to that way, stable, settled, relaxed even, had been SHIELD and look how well that turned out.

This wasn't a job anymore, it was her life.

Sighing she tipped sideways on to the bed, watching the kitten's tiny sides breathe in and out as he slept deeply. She warred with herself violently over the next hour, equal parts scared of the responsibility, eager for the companionship, worried over the little guy's future and damn sure she wasn't going to embarrass herself by changing her mind in front of the guys.

Her last thought before slipping into sleep was that if Clint could keep a whole family AND a farm AND pets going, in another state, for all these years she could damn well keep a cat alive in her own damn room.

 **XXX**

She and Steve got in the habit of sparring together when they both moved to the tower and she loved it. Clint was a great sparring partner, but his fighting style involved a lot of dodging so he could get far enough away to use his weapons. It meant she rarely actually hit him and it started to get frustrating. He would also never admit it, but she was stronger and she worried about hurting him. His bow fingers were so valuable, she would never forgive herself if she broke one by accident.

Steve, on the other hand, was unbreakable. He also didn't hold back. He knew a worthy opponent when he saw one and they both pushed themselves to the limits and beyond. More than once she had limped back to her room and fallen straight into bed.

Tony had recently returned her Widow Bites to her again (she honestly hadn't even noticed they were missing) with a long list of enhancements. Wanting to break them in, and feeling rangy now that her illness had fully abated, she went straight to Steve and asked if he was up for a session. He was busy looking over some papers with Sam, but he promised he'd be up for it the next morning. She went for a run instead and then danced and flipped her way all around the gym.

The next morning she was eating breakfast with Bruce and Thor, and Steve poked his head in, sweats on, and raised his eyebrows at her questioningly. She nodded, gesturing to her almost finished toast and he gave her a thumbs up and trotted off towards the gym.

"What was that?" Bruce asked.

"We're going to go kick the crap out of each other," she informed him, mouth full of toast. Bruce looked a little horrified, and Thor laughed. "You should come some time. Steve's a great teacher."

Bruce smiled but shook his head. "Not sure I'm ready to hit Captain America yet. It was hard enough learning to hit you."

She laughed and patted him on the shoulder before tucking her plate in the sink and skipping down to the gym. Steve was already doing quite a number on a punching bag and she started warming up. They didn't have to talk, they just knew the rhythm of the workout and at the same time they both drifted towards the mats.

Steve grabbed his practice shield which was made of softer material. It could still give you quite a bruise, but it wouldn't take your whole arm off like the real one could. Natasha strapped on her bites and switched them to training mode.

Some of the time she just liked the ease of sparring with Steve without either trying to take the other down. It felt like getting a perfect rally in tennis: neither trying to win, just enjoying how quickly they could parry and turn. Then a switch would flip and they would both suddenly go for it all out.

They started out slowly today, but ramped up into full-on attack mode pretty quickly, flipping each other on to the mats over and over. Steve's stamina was unparalleled and she always tired first, but he also wasn't as agile and was almost always caught by surprise when she tried one of her climbing take downs.

When she felt her muscles start to tire she slipped low under his arm, hooked her ankle around his side and ran up his body, wrapping one knee around his neck and twisting towards the mat. Unfortunately he managed to catch the edge of his shield under her bracing leg and she slipped, still pulling him over backwards, but on top of her instead of leaving her standing victorious.

"Oh my god, you're heavy!" she cried, laughing breathlessly, trying to heave his enormous bulk away.

He was laughing too and refused to budge. "You cheated."

"There are no rules and therefore no cheating! Get off, I can't breathe."

"You don't deserve to breathe." Steve crossed his arms.

"How many pop tarts did you eat this morning anyway?"

"Just admit I'm a better fighter than you."

"I took you down!"

"Who is the one who can breathe?" She could hear the laughter in his voice. Ignoring the diplomatic approach she activated her bites and gave Steve a nip from one on his side. He yelped and leapt up, turning to face her again. "Okay, it's on now."

They flew at each other dodging hits and colliding over and over. She had just stepped back to get some distance for a run at him when a voice in the corner of the gym distracted her and she turned around.

"Holy shit." Bruce was standing by the treadmills, staring slack-jawed at the pair. Steve seized his opportunity and grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides and lifting her off her feet. She struggled, but to no avail.

"Not fair, Banner distracted me."

"I thought there were no rules?"

"Shut up." Steve laughed, but put her down and let her go, giving her an affectionate, one-armed squeeze around her shoulders before releasing her. They walked over to the still stunned scientist.

"You okay?" Nat asked, waving a hand in front of his eyes.

He slammed his mouth shut and gave her a look. "That was crazy." He gestured at the area where they'd just been fighting. "Now I see just how easy you've been going on me."

"Well, I didn't want to break you."

"I appreciate that," he said, still eyeing her a little cautiously.

"You should show Steve what we've been working on." She gave him an encouraging push.

It took a little convincing, but soon the boys were deep in a lesson and she was pleased to see that Bruce was holding up well. She sat down near the wall and toweled herself off, watching the gentle sparring on the mats.

Darcy slipped in with some papers for Natasha from Tony and sat down in the chair next to her.

"Woof, not bad!" She gestured towards the two sweat-soaked men and then looked slyly over at Natasha. "I have a feeling you've got an underdog favourite though."

Natasha looked at Darcy sharply, but the girl's eyes were gentle, not taunting. For all her bluntness, Darcy really could keep a secret, and besides she was so observant there was no way she hadn't figured it out.

Nat sighed. "Yeah, I guess you could say that," she admitted uncertainly.

Darcy actually seemed a little surprised that Nat gave it up so easily, but she rolled with it.

"You should tell him. You guys would be the cutest. Plus he totally digs you."

Natasha picked disconsolately at her towel. "It's not about that, Darcy. It's awkward. He's not...I don't think either of us are ready for that."

"Well, whatever you are ready for, you should go for it. If you're not careful someone else will snatch him up."

Nat looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, not me," Darcy said, curling her lip. "He's like, way old."

The redhead couldn't help but laugh.

"At least tell him you like him." Darcy prodded her with an elbow.

"Maybe I will..."

"Or, do what I did with Ian and just wait til your about to be mauled to death by a bunch of crazy aliens in hockey masks except he throws a car at them and squishes them, and then just grab him and kiss him. Then if he's a crappy kisser you can just take it back cause you were about to die and he saved your life."

"Sure Darcy, sounds like a plan."

They turned back to watch the boys again. Eventually Darcy stood up to go.

"Eeyup," she said around the pen lid she was chewing on, her eyes still on the ring, "I should definitely come down here more often." And then just as she reached the door she called back loudly, "just do it, Nat!"

Bruce and Steve walked over, towels in hand.

"If Darcy wants you to do something, it's probably a bad idea..." Bruce said jokingly, getting a chuckle and a much wider smile out of Natasha than he had expected.

"We'll see." She gave him a wink as she walked out of the gym his confused eyes following her out the door.

 **XXX**

"What are you doing?" Natasha asked, slipping into the library the next day to find Steve pouring through a stack of local newspapers.

"Looking for an apartment in Brooklyn."

"Why don't you just stay at the tower like the rest of us?"

"I like having my own place. I had my own place in DC, I want my own place here." He sounded like he'd already had this conversation, probably with Tony.

"Somewhere you can bring a date where you won't have to fend off ogles and harassment from four superheroes and a demi-god?"

He laughed, "Yeah, exactly. She'd probably end up in Stark's room anyway."

"Hey, he's got Pepper now," she reminded him.

"He wouldn't even have to invite the date up, it would just be an automatic reflex. He probably has a literal chick magnet up there. Yeah, best I have my own place. What about you, you're going to stay here?"

"Yeah, I don't bring home dates anyway so not a problem." She paused and took a deep breath, trying to make up her mind. What the heck, Darcy already knew. Steve was a helpful guy, maybe he'd understand. "Besiiiides. The only date I'd want to bring home, if I could, is...already here..."

It took him a moment to figure out what she was saying and then his head popped up from the paper, eyebrow raised. He studied her for a minute. "Banner?" he asked gently.

"Uh, yeah, that obvious, huh?" She squirmed a bit, playing with the cover of a book she'd taken off the shelf.

"No, not really. Not if you hadn't just told me it was someone here."

"Most people would guess Clint."

"Nat, from the way you two carry on you've either already been together this whole time, or you threw that possibility out the window a long time ago. You're too comfortable with each other to be pining."

"That's fair. And it's the latter."

"Besides I'm pretty sure Barton has a girlfriend he doesn't want us to know about."

Now it was her turn to raise her eyebrows. "Really? What makes you say that?"

"He's always talking on the phone quietly in corners and then saying "gotta go...you too" and disconnecting when people notice. Sounds like there might be an 'I love you' in that pause. Plus he disappears a lot and he's always happier when he comes back. Reminds me of soldiers coming back from leave with their girls."

"Huh, you are more observant than I have given you credit for." She examined him shrewdly.

"I assume you know?"

"Mhm."

"But you won't tell me."

"To the grave, Rogers."

"That's fair. I hope you'd do the same for me. If it comes to it."

"Of course"

He looked strained for a minute. "I guess superhero-ing and romance don't exactly go hand in hand."

She shrugged. "Some people make it work."

"I guess. You going to tell Banner?"

The door creaked and Bruce stuck his head around the jamb. "Tell me what?"

Steve's whole body clenched, embarrassed, but a lifetime of practice allowed Natasha to spin calmly towards him and smile. "Oh good, I was just going to come looking for you. We wanted to tell you that we need your support in the jet on the China mission. Too many unknowns. We want someone on the comms with a laptop calling the moves. You in?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever you need." He nodded and then continued his way down the hall.

Steve let out a held breath and Natasha laughed. "Wuss," she said affectionately, grabbing her book and collapsing onto the sofa next to him.

 **XXX**

"So I'm sick of waiting around to be kidnapped," Tony announced marching into the library a few hours later. Natasha and Steve were still sitting on the couch reading. They both looked up as he sunk into a chair opposite them and Steve rolled his eyes.

"Congratulations Tony." He turned back to his book.

"No seriously, we need to learn more about this reporter lady, right? See for sure if she's involved. Well I dug through my latest invites and there's a charity gala for like retired racing greyhounds, or kids without legs or whatever being held this Friday and she's going to be there on a press pass. I can go – recon only – and see what she's up to, if there's anything suspicious about her. Maybe I'll pick up something interesting, or get a chance to bug her or something, if not, we're no worse off and I at least get to get drunk on someone else's dime."

Steve shrugged. "That's actually not a bad idea, Stark. You should definitely go. Sam, Barton and I are leaving Thursday to follow up the Winter Soldier lead in Alaska, before we hit the next HYDRA base, but if you find out anything interesting let us know and we can always come back." Tony bounced happily in his seat like a dog about to be let out of his crate. "Oh and don't you dare go alone," Steve added.

The two on the couch turned back to their books and all was quiet for a moment.

Tony broke the silence again, suddenly turning to Natasha. "Come with me," Tony whined, like a two-year-old begging to go to the park.

"Take Pepper."

"She's in New Zealand...or Portugal...or maybe Canada, I don't know. I need a date, you heard Steve, he won't let me go alone. Plus if you don't come and keep an eye on me I'll probably end up getting distracted and wander off to sign various body parts of Paris Hilton and friends, and then I'll miss the mark coming in and Pepper will kill me when the pictures hit the tabloids. Plus then Rogers will kill me again when he finds out I fucked up the mission." Steve nodded absentmindedly, not looking up from his book.

"My cover as your legal aid was blown when SHIELD went under, who am I supposed to be?"

"Don't worry, this is a party for socialites, not politicos. They won't have seen your pictures in Congressional Hearings Quarterly getting outed as a spy, they'll have seen your picture in the latest issue of Stark Naked draped over me, rather scandalously, while you shoot out my ice sculpture, two years ago, with a caption discussing my propensity for sassy redheads."

Steve looked up from his book looking perturbed. "Stark Naked? Is that a real magazine?"

"I'll get you a subscription for your birthday," Tony quipped, then turned back to Natasha while Steve glared. "We'll get you glammed up, wear a wig if you want, no one will recognize you, it'll all be champagne and crab puffs. When Ms. Sanders shows we'll slip a bug in her purse, see who she talks to and then bail."

Natasha shrugged, giving in. "Okay, why not. I like crab puffs."

"Great, it's a plan!" Tony leapt to his feet.

"But if there's no crab puffs I will kill you in your sleep," She added quietly, turning back to her own book.

"You are a scary, scary woman." Tony pointed at her and backed dramatically out of the room, sticking his head back in to say, "A car will pick us up at at 7 on Friday." And then again to remind her, "Full on glam, Romanoff."

Luckily, Natasha was very adept at glam. Despite the fact that she usually wore a skin-tight tactical suit to work, she had to dress the part often enough in her spy days that getting spruced up came naturally to her. Despite Darcy begging desperately to take her shopping before she, Jane and Thor headed out to Norway, she already had what she needed and the poor intern was forced to leave New York without new shoes.

The tower was feeling awfully quiet as she slipped into her curve-hugging, floor length, red dress and pulled out her makeup kit.

She was just finishing her mascara and straightening her blonde wig when she heard a knock on the door. "Come on in!" She called, grabbing her earrings and stepping out of the bathroom to find Bruce leaning against the door frame.

He whistled appreciatively when she came into view and she gave him a cheeky smile and a spin.

"Not bad?" she asked.

"Definitely not bad at all." Bruce raised an eyebrow at her and then crouched down to greet the orange blur that had leapt down from the bathroom counter to wind itself around his legs over and over. Bruce petted him quietly for a moment and then picked up a string and teased the kitten with it, smiling when he bounced after it uncoordinatedly.

Natasha pulled her shoes on, watching them play.

"So what did you decide to name him?" Bruce asked, too focused on the kitten to see her sudden, uncharacteristic flush at his question.

"Hmm." She said and he looked up and saw her embarrassment.

"What's wrong?"

She hesitated for a minute and then came out with it. "I kinda started calling him The Little Guy. It was a joke at first, but now it seems to have stuck."

He just stared at her for a minute, a horrified expression on his face and then he laughed. "You have a bizarre sense of humour, Natasha." But she wondered if he wasn't secretly pleased. He seemed half terrified and half awed by her comfort with his alter-ego – like he thought she wasn't taking it seriously enough, but at the same time wished he could be as relaxed about it as she was.

She picked up the kitten and walked over to Bruce holding the little fuzzball up against her cheek, the two of them looking at Bruce and doing double puppy-dog eyes. "I think he kinda looks like you, don't you think? Like, if you got tiny and orange instead of big and green?"

"You are the strangest person I have ever met." He spoke quietly and leaned towards her, just a tiny bit, but still close enough to shut Natasha's brain down. They hung there for a moment, eyes locked, something she couldn't quite identify passing between them. The moment was shattered too soon when The Little Guy got bored of being held and started wiggling and mewing.

"Okay, okay." She set him carefully on the floor.

Bruce reached out and plucked a piece of orange fur off her shoulder. "Have fun tonight." He moved towards the door.

"Yeah, thanks, we'll see. Babysitting Stark can be a full time job. I have no idea how Pepper has lasted this long without performance-enhancing drugs." She gave him a full-on smile. "I plan to get utterly sloshed though so try not to have a panic, okay?" she nodded jokingly towards his button fob, but he didn't smile.

"I don't know, you and Tony out playing bait without backup is pretty panic-inducing." He grimaced.

She sighed and grabbed her weapon-laden purse, stepping out into the hall with Bruce and shutting her door after her. Before he could turn to go she wrapped her fingers delicately around his wrist. "Not bait, recon. We'll be fine. We'll be careful. We'll be back in a few hours, hopefully with some answers."

He gave her a look, but nodded. "Yeah okay, I'll see you later."

"Bye Bruce. JARVIS, elevator please." She felt Bruce's eyes on her back as she walked to the elevator, but she didn't look back. She had a niggling little worry growing in her gut and she didn't want him to see it in her face.

 **XXX**

The party was exactly as she had suspected it would be. Everyone knew Tony and he made the rounds, kissing cheeks and flirting with the bartender. She hung off his arm, faking quiet and simple so she could keep her eyes peeled for the mark, looking over the edge of her champagne glass at the crowd and laughing demurely at Tony's jokes.

He was right about two things: no one seemed to recognize her despite her recent outing, and there were crab puffs.

"Guess you'll be sleeping soundly tonight after all, Stark," she whispered in his ear, grabbing a puff from a tray and smirking at him as she popped it in her mouth. He laughed and slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her towards him like he was flirting but his voice in her ear was low and careful.

"Twelve o'clock. Blue dress."

She smiled and gave him a flirty little tap on the shoulder, but her eyes scanned the room. There she was: __Juliet Sanders – Freelance Journalist__. She wafted in like she owned the place and immediately helped herself to a tall glass of champagne. Tony grabbed two more drinks and led Natasha to the back of the room where a few tall tables were dotted around. He picked a private looking one off to the side and pulled back a chair for her.

They sat down, heads close together, to the crowded room it appeared as if they were talking and drinking and flirting. Anyone who had read anything about Tony Stark would have been sure this blonde would be getting her clothes handed to her in a dry cleaning bag come morning.

In actuality both Avengers had their eyes on the reporter, watching her work the room, recorder in hard, remembering everyone she spoke to or smiled at and waiting for an opportunity to slip in a bug without being seen. Of course Tony Stark being Tony Stark he couldn't possibly sit quietly for more than two minutes.

"Nice dress, Romanoff. I almost didn't recognize you as a blonde."

"Thanks, Stark, that was the idea." Ms. Sanders turned to laugh at something a fortune 500 CEO had just said and a dark shape against the far wall caught her eye.

His face was in shadow, but there was something about the way that man stood. If only she could place him. It felt like it was on the tip of her brain, but she just couldn't make the connection. Suddenly he turned and the light hit his face.

"- and I really get the feeling you're not listening to me anymore," Tony muttered, seeing the look on her face.

"I know that face," she said, coolly.

"Yes, she's the reporter, she's why were here. How much have you had to drink Natasha?"

"Not her," she hissed, "the man behind Comb-over, with the dark hair and scowl. He was one of the gang that broke into the lab when Darcy was there."

"Shit." Tony put his drink down.

"That asshole gave me the flu. Stay here. I have a few questions for him," she growled.

Tony opened his mouth to argue, but she had already slipped away. Whisking a glass of champagne off a tray she walked confidently across the room towards the man, her eyes on the door at the back. As she came level with her mark she slipped her foot out to catch that of a blonde guy with too much hair gel standing nearby. Faking a trip over Hairgel's foot she slid sideways into the dark man, spilling her drink on him, but keeping her face turned away. Catching herself with Hairgel's arm Nat brought her hand up, covering her face in surprise.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry," she cried. Right as Hairgel said the same, grabbing her arm to steady her. "Excuse me, I am so sorry, I just have to-" cutting off abruptly she pushed between the two men, leaving them both confused and her target dripping with champagne. Slipping through the door to the back hall where the bathrooms were, Natasha backed up against the wall and dug through her purse. Pulling on her Bites and grabbing her garrote, she waited. A moment later the dark-haired man pushed through the door, swearing and wringing out his damp sleeve.

Black Widow pounced.

One hand around his mouth and the other tightening her garrote threateningly around his throat she backed him into the men's room and locked the door behind them.

Throwing him on the floor she wrapped her wire tightly around his wrists, keeping his tattoos pressed together and away from her skin. She slammed him against the wall and put her foot firmly against his throat, her heel digging painfully into his skin.

"Who are you?" She asked. He smacked her foot away, cursing in Romanian, and spat at her. She kicked him viciously in the side of the head, bringing her foot back to press even harder against his neck.

She switched on her Bites, letting him see the crackle as they powered on. She switched into Romanian. _"_ _ _Why did you break into Stark Tower."__

He coughed and lifted his hands in a kind of shrug. _"_ _ _It was a job."__

 _"_ _ _Who gave you the job?"__

He just laughed, earning himself another kick in the head.

 _"_ _ _What was the job, and who gave it to you?"__ she pressed

He switched into halting English. "Get in, get target, get out."

 _"_ _ _What do you want with Stark?"__

"What is Stark?"

 _"_ _ _Your target, what do you want with him?"__

"I don't know. Something about big change. A satellite in da sky." He mumbled for a minute and then switched back to Romanian. _"_ _ _They wanted the brainy guy, smart one, who built the satellite that can track him when he changes. Something about the technology, I guess. I don't give a fuck, I just do what they want, get paid."__ He trailed off muttering about how shit the team was he'd been sent in with.

"What do you mean change? What does the satellite do?"

"You know, big, green guy. Likes to break things. We see him on the news. __Boss gave us a drug and said it could knock him out as long as we got him by surprise. He was supposed to be there, in the lab, but then you assholes showed up instead. I don't get paid enough for this shit. So now I get this shit job because your friend broke my ribs instead of being there when they finally get the job done.__ At least you're here this time." He grinned like the Cheshire Cat. "Nothing you can do now..."

Her stomach dropped like a lead weight at the man's words.

They'd all been so wrong. So stupidly, blindly wrong.

They weren't after Tony..

 _ _..they were after Bruce.__

She had a hundred more questions for him, but there was no time. If he was telling the truth the team was on its way to the tower now and Bruce was there all alone. Once more vicious kick to the head and the man slumped to the side, unconscious. Natasha shoved him in the end stall, locking it from the inside and sliding out under the door.

She flew out of the back, slowing to a brisk walk when she re-entered the party. She caught Tony's eye and he saw the look on her face and started pressing his way through the crowd. They reached the door at the same time and she spoke quietly in his ear.

"It's Bruce they want. We have to get back to the tower."

Thank god Stark was smarter than he seemed at first meeting. He got what she was saying right away, immediately abandoning his plans to bug the reporter and instead setting a double-time pace out of the ballroom. Natasha started veering towards the front door, but Tony grabbed her elbow and steered her down the hall towards the coat check.

"You can pick your coat up tomorrow, Stark, we're in a bit of a hurry," she hissed, but he merely held up one finger and handed his chit to the cute coat check girl with a wink.

Natasha pulled out her phone and typed out a quick message to Bruce, praying he would get it in time.

 _ _Tower not safe. You're the target. We're on our way. Hide.__

She was just about to grab Tony and march out of there when the girl came back carrying, not a coat, but a sleek black suitcase with a red latch. Tony stuffed a random wad of bills in the tip cup and Nat saw the girl's eyes go wide. The two slid hastily out of the hotel and into an alley.

"Did you __check__ the suitcase suit?!" Natasha asked, watching as he threw it on the ground and stepped on the release. "I'm also pretty sure you just paid off that girl's student loans."

"Well I can't carry it around the party, it would look weird. I dropped it off yesterday." Tony grabbed the handles and pulled the chest plate on. "And I always make it a point to tip well. Today's coat check girls are tomorrow's police officers and district attorneys and...exotic dancers. I hope I am remembered fondly, citywide." The pieces of the suit clicked into place, sliding together and wrapping around him until his entire body was encased. Finally the visor lowered into place and locked with a click, the eyes beginning to glow as the suit powered on. He held his hand out to Natasha. "Need a ride?"

Nat rolled her eyes but slipped her feet out of her shoes, stepped up onto his feet like a little girl dancing with her father, and wrapped her arms firmly around his waist. "Stark?"

"Yes?"

"Don't ruin my dress."

"Yes, ma'am." He fired on the repulsers and they flew into the air.

Flying with Ironman wasn't exactly pleasant even on a good day. With the cold grip of fear around her heart and a very uncomfortable pushup bra digging into her side it was much less than pleasant. She just squeezed her eyes shut and gripped the metal plates of the suit as hard as she could.

She couldn't complain about the speed though.

They were halfway across town and at the tower in only a few minutes. Tony touched down on the Quinjet pad just long enough to drop Natasha and then took off again to check the tower. Natasha hit the ground running, her bare toes barely kissing the floor. Tony must have been talking to JARVIS in the suit because an elevator was already waiting for her.

She slid inside as the door shut and her heart fell through her stomach as the elevator rocketed down at five times its normal speed. She clutched wildly at the railing, trying to hold herself up against the sudden movement.

Stark's voice crackled through the elevator speakers. "Romanoff! The lab's been busted open again, glass everywhere, security down, no sign of Banner, green or otherwise."

"I'm on my way to his lab," she replied clenching her teeth against the force. "Really, really fast."

"Oh, good, the emergency settings must be working."

The elevator stopped with a lurch and the doors sprung open. The floor was quiet and still. Natasha drew her gun and made her way towards Bruce's office cautiously.

"Bruce?" There was no answer.

Everything looked remarkably dark and undisturbed and Natasha was just about to turn back and tell Stark to keep looking when she saw a flicker of red light in the corner by the floor. Moving carefully around the table, Natasha bent down and slid a stack of books out of the way to reveal one of Tony's cleaning bots, it's distress light flashing.

She let out a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through her hair. One side of the robot's flat body was tipped up, something caught in its port, its little wheels whirring uselessly. She grabbed it and flipped it over, pulling up the flap that covered the vacuum chamber. When she saw what was blocking the hole her heart stopped.

It was Bruce's panic button.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six:**

Two hours later everyone was assembled in the library. Steve and Clint had immediately flown back from their mission, leaving Sam to finish up things in Alaska, and Thor had appeared shortly after. Natasha and Tony had changed and spent the rest of the time searching for any news of the Hulk. The lack of damage to the lab suggested he had somehow resisted the change, but JARVIS did a full tower check and he was definitely gone.

Steve ran his hands through his hair, creases around his eyes betraying how worried he was. "Okay, let's go over everything from the start."

Natasha repeated everything the guy had said before she'd knocked him out.

Steve turned to Tony questioningly. "What's this about the satellite?"

Tony sighed and frowned at his coffee cup. "The thing Banner and I have been working on, the hulk containment unit she wanted to know all about? It uses a satellite that can track his gamma radiation. When Bruce changes he emits the radiation – not enough to hurt anyone, but enough that Veronica can find him. That's what they stole – part of the control system."

"Veronica?" Steve raised an eyebrow.

"That's her name. I can activate the system with JARVIS, but with that controller they also have full access to the satellite. I've been tracking it to see if they tried to use it, but there's been nothing there. Yet."

Natasha suddenly spoke up, unable to stop herself from asking the question that had been rolling around in her head since they all learned about the new system. "Whose idea was it?"

"Bruce's," Tony replied, giving her a careful look. "He doesn't trust himself. He had the idea; he asked me to help him build it."

"And now someone wants it? Why? Can they use it to control the Hulk?" Steve asked.

"Not really, and certainly not yet. All it was really meant to do was slow him down. I'm not sure anything can control the Hulk. Besides, it's nowhere near finished. We're working on the tracking part only, so far. It can find him, but there's nothing to deploy."

Clint fiddled with the end of one of his arrows. "But they don't need it to find him. They already have him."

"Can't you use it to find him now?" Natasha asked.

"It was the first thing I tried when we got here. Nothing. It doesn't detect Banner, only the Hulk. Either he hasn't transformed, or they've already got access to the thing and it's not working right."

They continued to go around in circles for the next hour and Natasha was starting to feel a little crazy. The truth was, there were lots of theories but what they didn't know was where Bruce was and that's all she cared about.

They sent Rhodey back to the hotel to check the bathroom, but the dark-haired man was gone.

Maybe if she'd __used her brain__ a little she would have thought to send Tony back to the tower while she kept guard over the informant, but at the time all she'd been able to think about was Bruce.

Tony still didn't have anything from Veronica, but he reminded them all that it was still in beta and who knews if it was even working properly. No one knew for sure if there was a drug that could keep Bruce from transforming, but Steve was pretty confident from his talks with Fury that a sedative applied before he transformed could keep him human at least until he woke up.

It was well after eleven when Natasha decided she just couldn't stand it anymore. Sitting there doing __nothing__. Watching everyone else do nothing and know nothing. Tony was up to his elbows in intel with JARVIS, trying to track Bruce's kidnappers as they left the tower. Steve was on the phone with everyone he knew, trying to see if anything weird had crossed anyone's radar, or if anyone had spotted the Hulk. So far nothing. If she didn't move soon her head was going to explode so she just stood up and walked out.

No one tried to stop her, but about half an hour later Clint found her in the gym beating the crap out of a punching bag.

"Hey, c'mon, what'd that punching bag ever do to you?" he joked gently.

She tried to give him a withering look, but it must not have come out right because his face immediately fell and he walked over to her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pressing his hand against the back of her head. She let her face wriggle into his chest and they just stood there for a second.

"We're going to find him, you know. He'll be okay. Honestly, you should be more worried about the people who took him." He tried a light tone.

"I know."

"What's wrong, Nat?" He leaned back so he could see her face and she tipped it up to him.

"I failed." Her tone was flat and unaffected, but Clint knew her better than that.

"Ah, Babe, you didn't fail. He didn't push the button, how could you have known?"

"I could have figured this out sooner. I could have realized that the man I spent the last 6 months hanging out with is just as smart, or smarter even, than Stark. I could have put this together and not left him alone."

"It wasn't even your mission anymore, Nat."

"It's not about failing the mission, I failed __him__. I finally thought I had this stupid thing figured out after all that crap with Rogers. And I stayed, which is weird for me and it was just starting to make sense and there's no way in hell he'll trust me now. __Fuck__."

"Whoa, Nat, I don't even know what you're talking about."

She couldn't bring herself to tell him about the fuzzier feelings towards Bruce that she had been dealing with lately, so she backed it up a few weeks. "I was __friends__ with him. With Steve and Bruce and Thor, maybe even a little bit Tony, and with Sam. I don't do that, Clint, you know that. He wore that button every single day, clung to it. I made a promise. I know he didn't really trust me, I mean he built that satellite in secret, but maybe someday he could. And now he's god knows where, and I don't even know if he's still him, or if he hulks out if we can get him back, and I __failed him__. And I feel like shit."

Clint just stared at her for a minute, making sure she was done her rant. "Well, you look like shit."

"Thanks." But it did make her lips twitch up at the edges.

"C'mon." He rearranged so he had only one arm wrapped around her shoulders and, walking beside her, he led her back to her room. He scooted her into the bathroom to clean up and change into her pjs.

When she came out, clean and changed, he was stretched out on her bed with The Little Guy lying on his chest, paws tucked in, watching Clint wiggle his fingers above him. When the archer noticed her standing there he shuffled over, careful not to disturb the kitten and patted the bed next to him.

She came over and lay down, curling on her side, level with the tiny cat, his wide eyes peering down at her curiously. She couldn't resist reaching up to pet him.

"We're going to find him, Nat, he's going to be fine. We'll bring him back and you can beat up some goons and everything will be okay."

She just sighed. He took his hand that wasn't busy petting the kitten and ran his fingers comfortingly through her hair. Just then his phone rang and, leaving his hand gently resting on her head, he dug it out of his pocket and pressed the answer button.

The Little Guy, grumpy at being bereft of pets, slid down off his side and onto Natasha's head, batting at Clint's hand tangled in her hair. She made a grumpy little noise.

"Hey, Darlin;" Clint said into the phone. "Yeah, I know. No, we haven't found him yet. I'm with Nat. She's pretty upset. Oh, you know, I think she blames herself or something stupid like that."

Nat gave him a glare from under the kitten's wiggling tail and he laughed.

"Mhm, mhm, yeah one sec." He picked the kitten up and lay the phone on Natasha's ear where his paws had been.

"Hi Sweetie." Laura's voice came through.

"Hi Lor." She tried not to, but somehow her voice came out sounding like a petulant child.

"You okay?" She felt better hearing Laura's voice. She was like the universal mom, somehow she could just kiss and make it better. "Oh wait, Lila wants to talk to you. I let them stay up late to look at the stars tonight so she's a little wired, sorry."

Lila took the phone and immediately started babbling about a story she was writing at school. Natasha smiled and sat up, crossing her legs, and switched the phone to speaker, laying it on Clint's chest so they could both listen. He tucked his arms behind his head and closed his eyes, smiling. The Little Guy had scooted down the bed to attack Clint's feet every time they moved.

She was just starting to zone out (Lila was a good talker) when a phrase caught her ear "...and then when my baby sister comes she can be the little pony and I'll be the bigger pony and Coop can be the farmer..."

Natasha's mouth fell open. "Clint?" she asked hesitantly.

He opened his eyes and gave her a cheeky grin. "Er, yeah?"

She flung herself at him, nearly knocking him off the bed and dislodging a very disturbed kitten. He let out a loud oof, just as Laura came back on the line.

"Uh oh, sorry, did, uh, did you hear-?"

"Yeah, she did," Clint squeaked breathlessly, clutched in a very tight, super assassin hug. Laura laughed.

"Sorry." Natasha leaned back, keeping Clint's hand in her grip and smiling. "Congratulations, Lor, I'm really happy for you guys."

"Thanks, Sweetie!"

"So you're naming this one after me, right?" She joked and Clint laughed.

"Yeah, you bet we are. What better than another Natasha running around, making my life difficult?"

"Hey!" Laura said, sweetly. "I love the name Natasha. We only just found out. Daddy made the mistake of letting it slip while the little monsters were in the room and Lila is, as you know, rubbish at keeping secrets."

"We'll have to work on that," Nat said, giving Clint a wink.

He pointed a threatening finger at her. "Don't you dare, I like it this way. It's the only way we know what Coop gets up to."

It was well beyond their time for bed so Auntie Nat said goodbye to the kids and to Laura and then Clint took the phone back and said goodnight to each of them before hanging up and setting the phone down on the bedside table.

Clint turned on the TV and settled himself more deeply into the pillows, yawning. The Little Guy came and curled up on his chest again, tucking his paws in and closing his eyes. Nat gave them a look.

"You're going to fall asleep here."

"Whatever."

"You really want to do the walk of shame back to your room in the morning in yesterday's clothes?" She joked.

"Let 'em talk. I'll do it in a towel, give 'em more fodder."

Natasha laughed and snuggled down next to him, watching the channels flip by. "They do talk, you know. Not the team, but the SHIELD junior agents did."

"Yeah, I know. Heck, I started half the rumours. Keeps them from trying to set me up on dates."

"Hey!" She gave him a smack. "It's hardly fair to drag my reputation through the mud just because you find it awkward having a secret family."

"Ow! I assumed you would be honoured. Some of the junior agents were very jealous."

"You're an ass."

"And you are the sweetest of angels." He fluttered his eyelashes at her sarcastically.

She gave him another half-hearted smack and they watched TV in silence for a while longer. She started feeling the pull of sleep against her eyes, glad that Clint was here to keep herself from wallowing in regret and worry.

"I've got to fix this," She whispered quietly in her pillow as her eyes closed.

He reached over and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "We'll find him, Babe."

Nat returned the squeeze, finally letting sleep claim her.

She woke up only a few hours later, the sky still dark behind the curtains and the tower quiet. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Clint was fast asleep beside her, on his back, one arm still tucked up behind his head. The Little Guy had graduated from his chest to his face, his belly squarely over Clint's eyes and his tail wafting up with every one of Clint's even breaths. His paws hung loosely down the side of Clint's face and over his ear. Both were snoring softly.

Her smile at the two of them eased the pain that had settled around her heart since Bruce disappeared, but only a little. She couldn't help but snap a quick picture - for blackmail purposes – before sliding out of the bed.

Not wanting to disturb Clint she slipped quietly into the bathroom to brush her teeth. She stared absently in the mirror, not really seeing her reflection. Why on earth would they need to take Bruce if they already had the satellite? How was that reporter lady even involved? Was she the leader? Another minion? Biohazard Boy hadn't mentioned her at the party and it hadn't seemed like he was there because of her, but he had said he was there for a __shit job__. Her bodyguard perhaps? Tony and Steve were focused on finding traces of Bruce, but maybe there was another way to answer some of the questions...

A memory jogged loose and the image of a smug brunette handing her a card filled her mind. __Juliet Sanders – Freelance Journalist__.

And an office address.

The tower was quiet and she was grateful not to have to lie to anyone about where she was going. She screwed this up, she would fix it. Sanders didn't know they had connected her to Bruce's kidnapping so she wouldn't be expecting them. Nat could break into her office, grab some intel and get out. Hopefully, she could find something that would help Tony and JARVIS pin down Bruce's location. If the whole team swarmed in, guns a-blazin, Sanders might panic and do something to Bruce. This had to be quiet, and quiet was __her__ thing.

Slipping down to the garage she grabbed the keys to one of Steve's more modern bikes. Steve wasn't as paranoid as Tony about security and once the bikes were in the tower he just hung the keys up on the wall.

Ten minutes later she was pulling up in front of the nondescript building where the reporter kept an office. The sun was barely casting a glow across the street, but Natasha had picked much more complicated locks in complete darkness and a few minutes later she was inside. The actual office was a little trickier, further convincing Natasha that the dark-haired woman had something to hide.

She shut the door carefully behind her and scanned the room. There was an immaculate desk, a large potted plant (fake), a bookcase, a filing cabinet, and a large Degas hanging on the wall (also fake). She ruffled briefly through the bookcase, but found nothing of interest. The filing cabinet was mostly notes and stories by date. Natasha carefully extracted the folder for the interview with Tony and Bruce and tucked it inside her suit along with several other interesting looking folders.

She gave the painting a little tug and wasn't surprised when it swung away from the wall. She was surprised, however, when it wasn't a safe that was hidden behind it.

Installed into the wall was something like a glass-fronted wine cooler, but instead of bottles of wine it was full of over fifty labeled test tubes. This woman obviously had a connection to something deeper than the New York Times. One of these was probably what they used to knock Bruce out without summoning the Hulk.

There was a keypad next to the cooler door, but impatiently wanting to see the contents she tried giving the door a little tug. To her surprise it sprung open easily. She leaned in to read the labels and was immediately hit with a face full of aerosolized liquid.

She coughed out violently trying to clear the mist from her lungs, but it settled into her mouth and throat and nose and coated them like honey. Her vision started to blur a little and she sat down heavily on the floor, trying to slow her breathing and heart rate, lessen the pace at which the drug tore through her body.

She didn't feel woozy or like she was going to pass out, but the control of her body seemed to be slipping away. Her arms were heavy and her legs didn't want to support her weight. Fighting the weakness she reached up above her and grabbed three vials at random from the cooler, Swinging the door shut and the painting behind it, she collapsed back on the floor, breathing evenly and steadily despite the fear pounding on her brain.

She estimated that at this rate she had about fifteen minutes before she lost control of her body completely. It took unbelievable focus just to pull her phone out of her pocket and turn the screen on. Sliding down the wall until she was almost flat on the floor she swam through the fuzziness in her vision and found the large red button that always blinked on the home screen of her Stark Industries smartphone.

 _ _Please let this call Tony.__ It took her three tries to hit the button, but when she finally did, the screen flashed red for a moment and then an unreadably-blurry message flashed up on the screen. Not sure if that had accomplished anything she slumped back against the wall. Her sight was now so affected she wouldn't be able to try anything else with the phone. By feel she tucked it and the vials into her belt and tipped over onto the floor.

Suddenly there were voices outside and panic resurged as they echoed in from the hallway. A woman was yelling at two men, something about doing their jobs and security. Shit, she probably set an alarm off when she opened the cooler.

Digging her hands into the carpet she dragged herself across the room, panting heavily now. There was only one way out – the window. Luckily the building was old and the reporter hadn't felt that the fourth story window was much of a security risk. The window opened out in two panels, instead of needing to be pushed up, for which Natasha was extremely grateful.

Smacking her hand wildly around until she hit the latch, Natasha felt the panels swing open. She kicked out hard with her nearly useless legs and managed to wiggle up onto the frame. The voices outside were getting louder as they climbed the stairs.

Four stories onto concrete. She'd survived much worse, but never without control of her body. At best she was looking at several broken bones, but it was a risk she had to take. Hopefully, her message had gotten to the tower, or Clint had woken up and figured out what she did and they would be here soon to scrape whatever was left of her off the sidewalk.

She heard a key in the lock and took a deep breath, her weakened fingers, clutched desperately against the window frame, loosed and let go.

And she fell.

It was only two stories before she came to a sudden stop, the wind abruptly changing directions and the little breath she had left whipped out of her mouth. She blinked furiously trying to see where she was, but her eyes wouldn't comply.

Then a familiar robotic voice whispered in her ear. "Hey there Annie Taylor, you know you really shouldn't try that without a bungee."

 _ _Tony__. She had never been so relieved to hear the creak of the Ironman suit or feel the air rushing past. Knowing she was safe she finally gave in to the pull of the drug and everything went black.

When she came to Tony's face swam into her vision. He was saying her name and rubbing his hands vigorously up and down her upper arms while she sat propped against the wall. As soon as her eyes focused he sat back hard, relief filling his features.

"Fuck." He started pulling at his legs and she realized he was still half in the Ironman suit. They were up in Tony's penthouse, just inside his personal landing pad. "I am getting way too old to deal with this crap."

Natasha was struck with a violent coughing fit and Tony gently ran a hand along her back while she emptied her lungs of the last of the drug. When it eased she pushed herself shakily back up into a sitting position and looked at Tony. "Oh, come on, you love it, Old Man."

He laughed and tossed the last piece of armour across the room into a haphazard pile with the others. "Yeah."

"Thanks."

"I'm not even going to do the whole, 'what the fuck were you doing,' thing, cause I know that you know you're an idiot." He grimaced at her.

"Rookie mistake. The cooler was rigged to go off if you tried to get in without a code. I should have thought of that. I was distracted."

"What you should have done was brought me along in the first place instead of alerting JARVIS at the last minute and giving me a goddamn heart attack."

They just glared at each other for a moment before Natasha felt the wind go out of her sails. "Sorry," she said shortly, but honestly.

He gave her a curt nod. "You're just lucky it was me and not Rogers or Barton who got the SOS." His eyes fell to a pile of papers on the floor. Tony had opened the files she had brought back, the vials lying next to it.

"Is it enough?" she asked. A hot sweat broke out all over body and she unzipped her tac suit, wriggling the top off until it hit her weapons belt. Her tank top underneath was damp with sweat and she leaned back against the wall and let the cool marble draw the heat away from her skin.

"It might just be..." Tony answered, distracted by the papers around him. He started flicking through the pages, speed-reading the reporter's notes. Nat finally got a good look at him.

He looked awful, she was sure he hadn't slept at all. His hair stuck straight up and there were dark circles under his eyes. For a moment she felt terribly guilty. She'd been so obsessed with her own feelings for Bruce she had forgotten that Bruce was one of Tony's best friends, and the man must be in a lot of pain.

Recognizing the look in his eyes she knew he wouldn't hear a word she said until he solved the problem in front of him. She stood a little unsteadily and made her way to the elevators. Clint was no longer in her room and The Little Guy was curled happily in his drawer. After a cold shower and fresh clothes she was feeling better.

She was just stepping out into the hall to find Clint when she Tony barreled down the hallway. He had a manic glint in his eyes that made her stomach flip.

"I found him. Suit up."

The tower burst to life. Ten minutes later the team was assembled at the Quinjet. Despite their short night everyone looked awake and determined. Tony gave the coordinates to Clint and then, as they took off, he explained.

"The notes Evel Knievel brought me make it clear the reporter is after Veronica. The things she's highlighted, leading questions she wanted to ask, it's all here. She's got doctor's notes on the drug she was going to use. It's sort of like Tetrodetoxine B, but just looking through this...it's got a way better chance of success. I think it really could keep him knocked out."

"How did you find him?" Steve asked.

Tony smiled. "She pays the lease." He flicked a finger against his tablet triumphantly. "It's roundabout and well hidden, but it's definitely her, and it's more money than a regular old reporter could shell out like that. It's the right kind of facility for playing with radiation. He's got to be there."

The flight was a tense one, Tony kept checking his phone and Thor couldn't stop swinging Mjolnir nervously.

Before long Clint called out that they would be in sight soon. The Avengers crowded around the cockpit, waiting for their destination to come into view.

The building sat in an out of the way spot on top of a hill. It was surrounded by a slightly overgrown parking lot and then woods on all sides. Two black vans were parked at an awkward angle near the front door but nothing else betrayed any activity inside.

They landed on the edge of the parking lot, trying to keep a stealth advantage if possible.

Steve quickly laid out the plan. Clint would take the jet back up to be air support. Thor and Tony would take a pass around the outside and then come in from the east. Natasha and Steve would go in from the west side, figure out what was going on and let the team know. If the Hulk was inside they would try to flush him out so Tony and Thor could try and take him down. If Bruce was somehow still Bruce, Thor would get him to the jet while the rest of the team cleared the building.

Natasha's heart was pounding as she stepped inside the building with Steve at her side. His knuckles were white on the edge of his shield. She slipped easily into mission mode, moving silently down halls, listening, scanning, checking in with Steve before every corner and door. Most of the building was empty and silent and after an aerial pan Thor and Tony let them know they were coming in from the other side. Clint kept up a general ramble of information about the layout of the building and the heat signatures that JARVIS' Quinjet presence was telling him.

It looked like they were mostly holed up in one wing of the factory. The two groups moved forward silently pincering Bruce's captors between two fronts of very pissed off superheroes.

Natasha and Steve hit a fork and they could see lights on in two rooms up ahead, down the hall. Clint called out two on the right and three on the left. With a nod they separated, Steve moving down the hall to the left and Natasha to the right. She slid low and sidled up against the wall. Muffled voices were leaking out from under the door, but Nat couldn't make them out. She switched on her Bites, drawing comfort from the gentle buzz of them against her wrists.

They reminded her of the buzz she hadn't felt – the one that might have prevented this from happening and she reached into a pocket on her belt and wrapped her hand around the panic button. She __would__ be giving this back to Bruce. Today.

"Engaging!" Steve yelled into the comm and she spun and slammed her foot into the door. It sprung off its hinges, hitting the floor and sliding several feet into the room. For a moment everyone paused.

Natasha had never blacked out from rage, but if anything would make her do so, it was what she saw now.

Bruce lay sprawled out on a cot, his arm hooked up to an IV. His skin was pale with a blue tinge to it. His face was slack and blank.

He looked dead.

If it weren't for his chest going up and down with his breath she would think he was. It moved, but at a much, much slower rate than normal. They were keeping him under so he wouldn't transform.

Two men in full tactical gear were standing to one side and it took three full beats of astonishment before they raised their weapons and fired. Natasha flipped quickly to her right, drawing the fire away from the bed where Bruce lay. An alarm's blare filled the air and she didn't know if it was for her, or one of the others. Sliding behind a counter she whipped out a gun and took down one shooter using the reflection in the large metal cabinet behind her.

The other guard was apparently more skilled and slipped to the side behind a large piece of equipment. She fired off three more shots, but couldn't get a good sight-line. She heard the clamour of boots and knew there were more guards outside the doorway.

They started shouting at each other in one of the few languages Natasha didn't speak and she eased her way around the counter trying to get a good look.

A steel-toed boot appeared around the edge of the counter and smashed into her face so hard she tasted blood. Spitting it out she grabbed the boot before it could retreat and pulled the guard down to the floor with her.

He hit the floor so hard she heard his head crack against the tile, but he was still conscious, a stream of what she could only assume was truly profane language spilling out of his mouth. He grabbed wildly getting a handful of hair and she ended up straddling his chest, his fist tangled in her hair, struggling to free herself.

Knocking his arm up with her elbow she was able to get enough freedom of movement to smack her bites against the sides of his face.

His hand went slack and hit the floor with a sickening crack. Gunfire broke out above her and she tipped backwards, landing on her back between the body of the guard and the edge of the table. Shimmying along the cupboard doors she just had time to get herself sorted when an explosion set the air above her ablaze.

Spinning onto her front she covered her face until the heat against the back of her neck abated. More shouting broke through the ringing in her ears and she pressed her back against the counter, tipping her head up to peer over.

The guard behind the machinery had stepped out slightly and was yelling at the guard at the door, gesturing wildly towards the fire that was crackling its way along the wall behind Natasha. The door guard said something that was clearly along the lines of "I don't give a fuck" and the other man shot him dead in the face.

Well, that was one way to settle the argument.

The remaining guard turned towards Bruce now, reaching for the edge of the cot, but he never made it. Natasha stood and tucked her pistol back in her belt, as the guard slid to the ground, her perfectly-placed bullet hole marring the back of his head.

The fire reached a few cabinets of chemicals and started blasting glass everywhere, finding fuel in every vial and bottle.

The smoke was clogging her lungs and coating her tongue with ash. She had to get Bruce out quickly and there was only one way that she could think of.

He wasn't going to like it.

She crawled over to the cot and pulled herself up until she was level with him. She couldn't help taking a second to rest her fingers on his cold, still arm before she ripped the IV out.

She immediately dropped down again and scrambled as far away as she could. There was a slight noise behind her as the drug began to leave Bruce's system. From the floor she could see color returning to the arm hanging off the cot. For one beautiful, perfect moment his skin was pink and warm and alive.

And then it was green.

The Hulk exploded off the stretcher, fabric and metal flying, a roar ripping through the room and ringing through Natasha's already buzzing ears. Without hesitation he ripped half the wall down and several ceiling tiles smashed to the ground by Natasha's feet. She backed into the corner, making herself as small as possible.

With another roar he grabbed the cot and flung it across the room. It slammed into the wall right next to Natasha and swung around. She had no time to duck out of the way before the broken, twisted metal crashed into her side. She felt blood dripping from her shoulder, a hitch in her breath where a rib or two might be bruised, but it didn't matter.

Any minute now he would see her and at this level of rage there would be no distinguishing between friend and foe. He would tear her apart without a second's pause and Bruce would have to live with that forever.

Her heart was pounding and she was pretty sure there were tears streaming down her face. Whether from the smoke or from the fear, she wasn't sure.

The fire had been sucked into the hall with the sudden addition of more air and fuel and it was burning rapidly across the old-fashioned wallpaper. For a heart-stopping second the enormous creature turned her way and she was sure he would spot her.

And then he was gone.

Her breath was ratty and choking and she leaned against the floor coughing up smoke and dust and more than a little bile from her churning stomach.

"Code Green," she rasped into her comm. "Also there's fire."

"Get out Nat!" Steve yelled, forgetting their code names in the heat of the moment. She heard screams coming from down the hall, but she couldn't make her legs work. She sat shaking and breathing for a full five minutes until Steve appeared, sliding around what was left of the wall, his eyes darting around desperately. When he caught sight of her he pressed forward, holding his shield against the flame.

Seeing his face jolted Natasha out of her panic and she stood up. Together they sped down the hall and away from lab.

The fire was already burning itself out so they pressed past it. The factory was an absolute mess. The hallway was destroyed, great caverns ripped through the walls on either side. Doors had been broken in half and in more than one place the ceiling had half caved in.

There was a large room with the doors blasted out near the end of the main hall and she and Steve approached it cautiously. A chair lay smashed on the floor and two men lay sprawled on the floor. Steve stepped in to check the bodies, shaking his head at Natasha when he got no pulse from either.

They continued on their way, moving briskly but carefully, checking every hall and room and then moving on, making their way towards the Hulk's roars. A large room with long windows overlooked the factory floor. Here things were different. The doors had been pressed in, the locks twisted and destroyed. Five dead bodies piled against the far wall. It looked like they'd locked themselves in, trying to hide from the terrible beast they hadn't been able to contain.

It hadn't worked.

Steve spoke over the comm. "This is no longer a rescue mission, team. The Hulk has taken his captives out. The building is clear, our goal is to get the Hulk contained and calmed."

Tony's response came quickly. "Might be tricky, Cap. He just made it out to the parking lot and he is looking pretty far from calm."

Steve and Natasha picked their way through the rubble to the north end of the factory. The Hulk had completely obliterated that side of the building, tearing whole walls down. The two reached the edge of the destruction and they could see his huge green body outside in the morning light.

Natasha was hit with the strongest sense of guilt she had ever experienced. The last time she'd seen the Hulk this angry was when he was chasing through the guts of the falling Helicarrier. She'd promised him it wouldn't go like that again, but what could they do now? If the Hulk hadn't leaped out of the Helicarrier she had no idea what they would have done. Thor could barely keep up with him. Even with Stark in the suit there was no way the two of them could tire him out enough that he'd give in to Banner.

"It's time the Hulk took a little nap, guys. Anyone know a good lullaby?" Tony's voice on the comms was tense.

Her mind flashed back to a quiet night in Bruce's room, to that terrifying afternoon in the lab. If anyone could do this, it was her. It might not work, but she sure owed it to him to try.

"I do," Natasha answered, stepping towards the broken doorframe. A hand grabbed her arm, holding her back and she looked up to Steve's concerned gaze. She gave him a reassuring nod but in a firm 'this is not a discussion' way. After a beat or two he let go of her arm, fear still twisting his features.

Natasha couldn't lie, she was feeling pretty tense herself. She had barely been able to bring Bruce down from the edge of transforming, what made her think she could calm the Hulk enough to let Bruce come back?

She picked her way through the rubble and out into the parking lot where the Hulk was currently ripping a car into its component parts. She took low, slow breaths, focusing her mind on slowing her heartbeat and keeping the adrenaline rush under control. This was no time to panic. Her ribs ached and she didn't know how badly she was cut, but she let it fade from her mind.

Once she was sure she had herself calmed she took a few steps out into the open and crouched low, trying to look non-threatening. As far as she knew the only thing that anyone had ever tried to slow the Hulk down was violence and she hoped he would see she was something different. She took off her gloves and the Bites and held up her hands.

"Hey Big Guy," she called and he whipped his head around in her direction and roared. Natasha put one hand down on the ground to steady herself, the shaking in her legs becoming hard to ignore. She kept eye contact with the Hulk and breathed slowly and obviously, letting her eyes soften and her lids blink closed a few times the way The Little Guy did when he was feeling sleepy. "You did a good job here," she continued, "but it's getting late and we'd kinda like you to come home."

The Hulk huffed and growled and started tearing a car tire into little pieces. He hadn't attacked her though and that was a good sign. It did seem that he was more open to his teammates after he'd had a chance to work out his energy destroying things for a while. He'd been practically friendly after the battle in New York and had let Bruce re-take control with little difficulty. Natasha had a theory that after a good smashing session the Hulk was tired and ready to relinquish his mind – he burned hot and fast and then needed a rest.

This Hulk was stressed though and wasn't giving up that easily.

She inched a little closer, keeping her body low and one hand in the air. "C'mon, Bud. You've smashed everything there is to smash. You must be tired?"

The Hulk grumbled as if to say, "not a chance," but he put the tire down and moved a little closer.

"That's it."

Suddenly her comm cut in and Clint's voice filled her head making her flinch. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, Nat?"

She pulled the comm out of her ear and tossed it aside, knowing she'd probably never find it again and wondering vaguely how many they went through in a year. The last thing she needed now was Clint's protectiveness giving her second thoughts.

"C'mon, Big Guy, that's it," she encouraged as the Hulk moved closer, his face curious, focused on her hand. When he was only a few feet away he stopped and they hung there for a moment. Her arm was getting tired, but she kept her hand still, palm out and facing him.

Her goal was to somehow reach his arm. The only way she knew to bring Bruce down was to touch him – the way she had when he cut his hand in the lab – if she could just...

She stretched her hand out towards his arm and he pulled back roaring. It took all her self-control not to turn and start running right there, but the thought of Bruce trapped and alone and scared was enough to ground her. She imagined his floppy hair and his crinkled eyes. She pictured him giving her one of his drive-by smiles and it was enough to keep her crouched there on the ground in the face of this terrifying monster.

The Hulk seemed confused by her stillness and, still mesmerized by her hand, he moved back towards her again. This time she kept her hand up and just waited. Slowly he reached up his enormous hand and, mirroring her, held it up flat, palm facing her. Stunned, but not sure how to react Natasha just stared. Then, very, very slowly she rotated her own hand until it was palm up. Two long beats and the Hulk followed suit.

His huge green finger was only inches from hers, just hanging in the air. Catching his gaze she held her calm eye contact, willing him to understand that she was safe. With every breath out she inched her hand a little closer without shifting her body weight or making any sudden movements. Finally, she breathed deep and let her tiny fingertip lightly kiss against his enormous one.

He tensed ever so slightly but didn't move so she continued her progress, sliding her palm along the underside of his index finger until her pale hand hung from the underside of his like a dewdrop on a palm leaf.

Without changing speed she started moving up the side and over his thumb. When her hand appeared over the curve of his he turned his attention down to the movement and her breath caught for a moment. He seemed merely curious, however, even tipping his head a little to the side. His fingers curved in a little and she worried briefly that he was going to try to hold her hand. As sweet as that would be, it would probably end in five broken fingers for her.

Encouraged by his relaxation she leaned forward enough to slide her two fingertips gently up the inside of his wrist and back down. After two repeats of the motion he breathed in suddenly and started to waver a little. She leaned back again to slide her fingers back towards his palm and he flinched and snorted so loud she slipped backwards onto her butt, her hand whisking along his palm and off the tip of his finger.

He grunted and staggered backwards away from her, clutching his hands to his chest. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought her ribs might break. He wasn't paying attention to her anymore so she scrambled backwards, unable to look away. Her eyes welled up and she fought back the tears as he roared and careened into a car. She really thought it would work, but it seemed to only make him angry again. She was just looking for her comm so she could call Stark and Thor in for containment when an oddness to his movement gave her pause.

He slipped to his knees and then fell forward onto his hands. He was still making noise, but it was more of a groan than a roar. His back and arms started to twitch and he slipped down all the way onto his side, shaking. His skin stretched and distorted and then began to shrink, the green tone sliding away.

Natasha just sat there, mouth open, staring. She had never seen the Hulk change back into Bruce and as relieved as she was to see her gentle touch had worked, it was horrific to see. It looked so __painful__.

Finally, he was back to his normal size and colour. He lay panting and retching on the ground. Suddenly gaining control of her body again Natasha sprang to her feet and ran to him, sliding down onto her knees beside him.

"Bruce?" she whispered, slipping her hand into his. She was relieved when his fingers tightened around hers fiercely, hanging onto her like she was a cliff-edge he was afraid to slide off of. She gently ran her hand along his forearm and waited for him to recover. The team had all made their way into the parking lot, but they hung back, giving him space.

After a few minutes Bruce rolled onto his back and opened his eyes, blinking against the light.

"Hey, Doc," she said, giving him a smile.

"Hey," he said hoarsely blinking at her.

"Ready to go home?"

"Definitely." He groaned a little and clutching his head with his free hand, the other still attached to Natasha's with a death grip. Steve tossed her a blanket from the first aid kit and she wrapped it around him, helping him to his feet. Tony hovered on Bruce's other side, ready to support him if he should slip, but he was getting more steady every minute.

"Soo.." Bruce said, looking around at their tense faces. "Did we win?"

"Uhh, you kinda won it all by yourself, Buddy," Tony said.

A sharp laugh threatened to slip out of Natasha's mouth and she slapped her hand over it. She felt weird and giddy, coming off her adrenaline high. The relief of having Bruce back, okay and him again was so sudden and so extreme she felt a bit dizzy. He caught her eye and they just stared at each other for a moment in amazement, hands clutched together until she felt the heat of the other's eyes on them and she let go, instead reaching up to give Bruce a little poke in the chest.

"You didn't push it," she said teasing gently, pulling his panic button out of the pocket on her tac belt. He reached out and took it gently, breathing a sigh of relief to have it back in his hand.

"Sorry," he mumbled looking up through his eyelashes at her like a schoolboy late for class.

"No, I'm sorry. We figured out it was you they were after, but by the time we got back it was too late."

"They knocked the button off when they grabbed me. They hit me with some kind of sedative dart which knocked me on my ass right away. I remember getting dizzy and seeing their faces...that's all I remember...until..." he looked up into her eyes again.

"Is no one going to mention that crazy hand thing you guys were doing?" Tony asked bluntly. "I thought you were going to sing him to sleep in Russian or something. Is that some kind of weird magical Pattycake thing you guys have been working on? It was both creepy and kinda awesome."

"That's enough, Tony," Steve said wearily. "Let's get everyone home, we can do a debrief later. After food. And showers."

"And pants," Bruce added.

"Yes, let's get the man some pants." Clint nodded emphatically leading the way back to the Quinjet. Thor took to the skies and Steve and Tony followed after Clint.

"Maybe the hulk needs his own pants..." she heard Tony mumbling to himself as they walked off.

Natasha couldn't help but grin the whole way back. She couldn't stop mulling over the implications of what had just happened.

Bruce finally had a path back from the Hulk.

All he had to do was trust her to lead him down it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven:**

Something in Steve's face kept everyone quiet for the plane ride back. Bruce lay back in his seat, eyes closed, breathing controlled and even. Natasha sat beside him, staying very still, not wanting to jostle the calm he seemed to be working to maintain. Clint was close on her other side and she tapped a nervous rhythm on his palm with her fingers.

As soon as they landed Steve muttered "library, twenty minutes," and made for the elevators.

Natasha took stock of her injuries in the mirror. Her nose wasn't broken from the boot to the face, but she had a hell of a black eye. The two ribs were bruised, but not cracked. There was a delicate slice from her chin down the side of her neck where the metal table had hit her. Also her hair smelled a bit "singey" in a worrying way. All in all, nothing she hadn't dealt with before and nothing that would bench her.

Though the ribs might make it hard to reach the top shelf in the kitchen.

Natasha changed quickly without bothering to tend to her injuries, hoping to get to the library first so she could talk to Bruce for a minute, but when she got there Bruce, Thor and Clint were already there, standing in silence. Steve came in close behind her, Tony drafting in after him. They formed an odd circle in the room, no one moving to sit down.

Steve opened his mouth to begin what she assumed would be a very tactful version of "what the hell was that" but Tony got there first.

"What the hell was that? This is so cool, Buddy!" He clapped Bruce on the back. "You can get in there with us now, no need to worry about going off on a crazy rampage. Nat will do her weird little hand trick and BAM out like a light! So, now that we have the Hulk under control, first thing's first, there was this guy that was mean to me in high school and I think we should just airdrop you over his house."

"Gah, Tony." Bruce gave him a pained look and he reluctantly fell silent.

"Look, I think we need a little more information before we charge ahead," Steve said, eyeing Tony. "How did that work? Have you done it before?"

Bruce started shifting uncomfortably as all the attention turned to him so Natasha spoke up, putting him out of his misery. "No idea. And only sorta. Never after a full transformation. Before you guys got here, when I was acting as Banner's bodyguard, we had a few close calls."

"So, you think you could do it again?"

Bruce's voice was quiet, but firm. "I cannot ask Natasha to put herself in danger like that."

Natasha opened her mouth to speak, but Thor spoke up instead. "If you can, indeed, release the Hulk without fear of an inability to return you'd be a great asset to us in battle."

"But we have to be careful, we should test this again, in a controlled environment," Steve said, his "Captain Voice" crisp and confident.

"What do we need tests for?" Tony leaned forward earnestly, bristling for his usual fight with Steve. "We just did a test and it worked perfectly. What will a 'controlled environment' tell us that an actual field test won't?"

"We can't just assume what worked once will work again." Steve clenched his jaw. He gestured vaguely towards where Natasha was sitting. "They said themselves they didn't know if this would work."

"But it obviously does work!"

Clint waved the arrow he was fiddling with in Tony's direction. "What's wrong with some tests, Stark? We can go somewhere quiet, let the Hulk smash around for a bit and Nat can try bringing him down again, with us there to pull her out if it goes wrong."

"We don't have time," Tony pointed out. "We've got HYDRA bases lined up to hit. Bruce was going to be backup in the jet, but if we can have him on the ground we can avoid another situation like in Canada."

Steve sighed. "Maybe you're right, how confident are you that you could that again, Natasha?"

Natasha opened her mouth to answer when the sharp sound of Bruce's hand smacking against the table behind him startled them all

"NO," he said with finality. Everyone involuntarily took a step back, except Natasha who voluntarily took a step towards him.

"Bruce..." she said calmly, the only one of the team who could tell the difference between Bruce's normal moods and his dangerous ones. There was no hint of green, his breathing was even and his shoulders – the first to tense when The Big Guy was on his way – were calm. He was angry though, and scared.

"Natasha." His voice was quiet, but strained. He looked up to meet her eyes and she saw the depth of pain there. They just looked at each other for a moment, the other team members staying silent, not sure what they were missing.

He was going to resist this and she didn't know if it was because he didn't want to risk hurting her, or because he wasn't ready to let the Big Guy out on a regular basis. Or because he didn't trust her. This was not a conversation she wanted to have in front of the whole team, but despite all the time they had together they hadn't yet mastered telepathy.

This was stupid.

"You wait here," she gestured to the group. "We need to talk." She grabbed Bruce's arm, not missing Steve's flinch at her lack of caution with their most volatile team member, and marched him out of the library not giving anyone time to protest. She shut the door behind them and opened her mouth to speak, then stopped and eyed the door suspiciously, dragging him down the hall to the kitchen instead.

"What do you-" She started, but Bruce cut her off.

"What on Earth were you thinking?" His voice was tight and controlled, but she could feel the ribbon of anger running through it.

Okay, so that's not what she was expecting.

"I was thinking, gee it would be nice if our teammate didn't have to be giant and green forever." Natasha felt her cool exterior cracking in the face of his anger, her own frustration showing through.

"That was the stupidest- god, Natasha, I just don't-" Bruce scrubbed his face viciously and walked away a few steps, keeping his back to her.

"You're mad at me?"

He turned suddenly back towards her, his face twisted. "Of course I'm mad at you! Do you know how dangerous that was?"

"Yes. I do. I know __exactly__ how dangerous it was." Her words fell flat and silence stretched between them for a long moment. "Why are you mad at me? I was __helping__ you."

"I could have killed you!"

"You're mad because I could have been hurt?"

He stared at her, blankly. "Yes." He sagged a bit. "You were hurt. I'm looking at the result of what happens when I lose control." He gestured to her black eye and the cut on her neck.

"To be fair, the shiner is not from you, it's from a particularly sneaky steel-toed boot."

"What about the way you're holding your side, they way you hitch when you breathe. I know what bruised ribs look like." Bruce stepped close to her and gingerly reached out to the cut on her neck, tipping her chin aside so his practiced eyes could see the severity. "And this?"

Her eyes met his and he knew.

"You do know what my job is, right?" She was happy to see that got a tiny twitch in the direction of a smile. "I got you back. I thought you'd be happy."

His eyes were dark and unreadable when he met her gaze. "If I had woken up to the team telling me I had ripped your head off because you'd tried to talk down the world's most violent and uncontrolled __monster,__ I would – I - ." He couldn't finish.

This was probably not the time to tell him it had been her that released the Hulk in the first place.

"Well, you didn't."

"That's not how it usually goes." He looked down at the floor, crossing his arms tightly in front of his chest.

"What do you mean?"

He finally deflated completely, sagging down onto the kitchen table, crossing his arm across his chest and kicking his legs out in front of him."Every night, I lose control and you all die. Every night. When I saw you coming towards us- __him__ , I thought they were finally coming true."

"You dream about killing us?" Natasha's voice was steady and careful.

"I dream about losing control."

"And when you do, we die?"

"Every time."

"What do you remember?"

"What?"

"What do you remember, when you change?"

He took a deep breath. "Well, it's, uh, weird. And not always the same. It's kinda like a dream – when I wake up it starts to fade. I often know where I was and some of what I did, and I always remember how he __felt__ , but it's like I only remember it after the fact, not like I'm living it at the time." He paused, looking at her. "Last time was different though. I remember you coming. I- he felt __different__. Kind of, ummm, intrigued? Or, that's not the right word. Something...else..?"

"So it really did have an effect? Approaching him calmly?"

"Oh yeah, definitely. I'm not sure just anyone could do it though, Natasha. It felt like he __remembered__ the last time. Like he knew that you were there to tell him to calm down. He, uhh,-" He paused, rubbing his hand self-consciously on the back of his neck and not meeting her eyes. "He likes you."

Natasha smiled. "Good."

He seemed both relieved and little frustrated that she wasn't upset by finding out that his giant, angry, destructive alter ego thought she was the bee's knees. She sat down next to him on the table.

"I'm sorry I scared you." She finally caught his gaze. "I want to try again."

"Ahhh, Natasha...I don't like it. What if he hurts you?"

"I thought he liked me." She poked him playfully with her elbow.

"I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing. He likes breaking cars in half too. What if he thinks throwing a building at you is a good way to show his affection?"

She shrugged casually. "Wouldn't be the weirdest thing a guy's ever given me."

He laughed and then groaned, leaning forward to put his hands on his face and then running them back through his hair. "I couldn't stand it if something happened to someone because of me."

"You know-" Natasha paused, swallowing, uncomfortable as always with telling a personal story, but needing Bruce to understand. He took his head out of his hands at her tone and turned to look at her. "When you first get recruited by SHIELD they put you through tests. Simple stuff, speed, agility, recon skills. They have you spar with another agent to test your hand-to-hand skills. I wasn't – I wasn't really trained to hold back...I broke his wrist and gave him a concussion."

She looked down at her hands. "Bruce we've all hurt people, some of us have killed innocents and not always by accident. The best you can do is use whatever strength and will and genius you have to do good as often as you can. If you could see what my ledger looks like..." She trailed off, then spoke more firmly "I'm really glad you can't see it actually."

"It's a terrible privilege," Bruce muttered, more to himself than to her.

They sat quietly for a moment, minds following separate trains of thought.

Finally, Bruce broke the silence. "I just can't do this now, Natasha. Maybe...I don't know. But I can't charge in tomorrow like it's suddenly easy. What if there had been civilians around today? I mean, how many people did I even kill? What if you try calming him down some day and he decides he doesn't want to and just wanders into a large city and starts ripping it apart?"

"Okay."

"It just feels like such a huge risk, and you're taking the biggest risk of all, and I – wait, what?"

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"If you're not ready, I'll back you up on that. With the team."

"Oh. Okay," he said, lamely.

"I'm not going to lie, there are times when we could use some help out there and the Big Guy's way of helping is pretty damn helpful, but you're not a soldier Bruce, you didn't sign up for this. I won't ask you to."

"Thanks."

"But if you are ready, someday, I **will** be there to make sure you come back to us." Her voice stuttered a little around the "us" wanting to say "me" instead, but catching herself in time.

"Okay, thanks." He let out a breath that sounded like he'd been holding it since the meeting started and she couldn't help but rub her fingers gently on the inside of his arm. He didn't lean into it, but he didn't pull away either. A moment later she stood and led them back to the library.

No one was exactly pleased with their decision, but they all respected it, even Tony. It looked at first like he was going to protest but Bruce gave him a look and he fell silent. Presumably that was a conversation that would be continued later, but she knew Tony wouldn't be the one to break his resolve.

That settled Steve immediately got on the phone. Maria Hill and her team of ex-SHIELD agents swooped in on the destroyed lab to do cleanup and see what they could recover from the ruin.

Tony and Sam agreed to do a run to the reporter's office to see if they could track her down. No one remembered seeing her at the lab, but the damage had been pretty extreme.

Natasha found herself not really caring that much. The rest of the team could sort out the details, she needed a hot shower and an Advil. She had Bruce back, and the right colour and she'd be damned if she let him get taken again and that was all that mattered. She was about ready to staple the panic button to his face at this point though.

She'd almost followed him back to his room, just to be sure he got there safely, but he'd raised an eyebrow at her and she'd slunk off to her own quarters instead.

Without looking too closely at the patchwork of bruises and cuts across her body she took a shower and downed a couple Advil, the pain in her ribs easing as soon as she pressed an ice pack to her side.

Suddenly exhausted as the adrenaline rush faded she slid to the floor with her back against the side of her bed and took shallow breaths against the sudden shock of cold. The weight of the day was slowly pushing harder and harder against her shoulders.

She had the urge to go talk to Steve – he always seemed to know what to say to make her feel better – but he was caught up in sorting out the aftermath and she didn't want to bother him. She ran a stiff hand through her wet hair and winced as she hit a sore spot she didn't even remember getting.

A little sound had her lifting her head to meet two huge yellow eyes. The Little Guy placed one paw on her knee and leaned forward to bump his head against hers. She reached out and scooped him up, pressing him to her chest and letting the ice pack fall. He immediately started purring, wrapped in the heat of her shower-warmed body.

They stayed curled up together on the floor, Nat idly rubbing his chin, while the kitten lay on his back, four limp paws in the air, purring like a broken aircraft carrier, until the JARVIS-run automated feeding kicked in and the sound of his kibble hitting the bowl had him leaping out of her arms and scampering across the room.

Nat couldn't help but smile.

 **XXX**

The base in China had been dropped down the list of importance and replaced by a location on a tiny island in the Caribbean. The intel had come straight to the tower, trawled out of NSA reports by JARVIS (Steve carefully didn't ask how he had access to the information) and they knew they had to act on it fast. An energy output much like Loki's scepter had set off a whole slew of alarm bells in multiple government agencies and if they didn't get in quick, the feds might send in their own team, incapable of handling the HYDRA forces they might encounter there.

The flight was a quiet one. Natasha wasn't the only one nursing wounds and no one had had quite as much sleep as would have been ideal. Bruce sat on the other side of the Quinjet with his headphones on. His fingers twisted together and apart while he stared morosely at them. He had assured the team he was going as comm support only, but there was a tension already set in his shoulders that made Natasha nervous.

"What do your elf eyes see, Legolas?" Tony teased as Clint leaned forward to peer out the window of the jet.

"Lord of the Rings," Steve muttered to himself, nodding a little, and Natasha suppressed a laugh. He really was getting a grip on the 21st Century.

"Well I can't lie, Gimli, I see a giant robot knocking down a forest," Clint said, flatly.

"I'm not Gimli," Tony complained. "I'm like, Gandalf, or maybe Aragorn."

There was a beat while Clint looked calmly out the window and everyone processed what he had said.

"What?" Steve asked and like one person they all leapt to their feet and swarmed the cockpit.

Clint pointed, but there was no need. A massive...well...robot was stomping around in a clearing grabbing trees and ripping them out from the roots. It must have been at least fifty feet tall.

"I thought this was a Hydra base." Tony turned to Steve.

"Me too. Intel pointed towards experiments with Asgardian magic, not..that...maybe they're testing something new?"

"A giant tree-murdering Hydra robot?" Clint asked cheerfully. Steve just pinched his eyebrows and looked concerned as they flew in a large arc around the clearing. "What's the call Cap?"

"Bring us in. No matter who built it, that thing needs checking out. We'll land as close as we can – watch the monitors for sensing equipment on the ground – and go in as a group. We can try to make contact, but if that's unsuccessful we disable it until we can determine it's origin. Agreed?"

They all murmured their assent and starting gearing up for descent.

The robot was even huger up close.

It's dense metal legs towered above them. It was vaguely humanoid, but where its head should be was only a low, black dome. Its arms ended in grasping claws severed into several joints.

"This is fucking weird," Clint whispered into his comm and Steve shot him a look.

Natasha's eyes flicked to Tony and saw a look she knew all too well: admiration tinged with jealousy. "Hey Stark," she called tauntingly, "take it down and maybe Cap will let you keep it."

Tony's face lit up and Steve quickly pointed at him. "No. Stay down Iron Man, we have to make contact first." He paused. "Plus we have nowhere to store that thing."

"Just, one claw and the control system," Tony whined. "Please, Mom? I'll walk it and feed it every day, I promise."

Steve ignored him, pressing a button on his comm which broadcast his voice loud and clear to the surrounding area. "Identify yourself!"

The robot paused in his tree-ripping and there was a whirring sound as the dome slid around in a circle. Then all returned to silent and still.

"Identify yourself!" Steve repeated. "If you do not identify yourself we'll be forced to dismantle your machine and take you into custody."

Again silence returned and Nat and Clint shot a look to each other, crouching ever so slightly into a ready position.

"I urge you to comply!" Thor's voice boomed around them without aid of magnification.

The robot stood still for a full minute and Steve was just opening his mouth to speak again when it suddenly whirred to life. The giant claws reached down and ripped a huge tree out of the ground, pulling it slowly free – roots cracking and snapping, dirt flying in all directions. Suddenly, with the speed of a striking viper the robot spun, flinging the tree across the clearing, directly at the team.

Without command they all flew into action. Natasha flung herself to the side, rolling out of the way as the tree smashed point first into the other trees around them, exploding into deadly splinters. She felt a sharp pain in her calf, but not enough to slow her down as she zig-zagged through the trees at top speed, skirting around the outside of the clearing to face the robot again. Movement across the clearing caught her eye and she saw Hawkeye performing the same maneuver on the opposite side. Before either could reach their destination Iron Man and Thor burst out of the tree cover and flew straight at the robot. Repulsor blasts and a speeding Mjolnir made straight for the delicate looking dome but the robot was surprisingly agile. Dodging the hammer its claw-arms came up to defend against the energy blasts.

Nearly in tandem Cap, Natasha and Clint dove out of the trees and formed a three-pronged attack from below. Hawkeye rained arrows down on the robot and Cap's shield left large dents in the side of its metal casing. Natasha let the others fire at will while she darted around near its feet looking for an opening. A huge foot hit the ground so close she felt a breeze as it smashed into the earth and she took her chance. Leaping sideways she wrapped her arms around its smooth metal body and started scrambling up.

The momentum of it lifting its huge feet helped shoot her upwards and she caught a grip at its knee joint. Swinging around she used its next step to propel her up to its hip. Scanning it quickly she tracked for any sign of controls, weak points, wires, gaps in its armour, anything. All that met her eyes was a smooth flawless metal body. The bending joints were the only places with any gaps or creases and they were re-enforced on top of reinforcement.

There had to be a way in though, if she could stop whoever was controlling, she could stop the robot. The robot was still moving violently around and she activated the magnetic setting on her new wrist shockers, locking her into place against its side.

A Hawkeye arrow pierced the metal just below the black dome and stuck, drawing her attention upwards. Looking beyond the arrow she examined the dome. Closer now she could see it was made of some strong glass-like substance. Dark, like a deeply tinted window, but reflective. There was no doubt the person controlling this monstrosity was inside.

"I'm going for the dome," she informed the team and got four affirmatives back. A volley of reinforced arrows followed their brother, embedding into the robot's chest. "Thanks." Nat grunted out, releasing her magnets and swinging up to the lowest arrow. The shafts weren't exactly designed to take the weight of a person, but Natasha kept herself hugged as tightly in as possible and distributed her weight amongst as many arrows as she could get her hands and feet on.

It was hard work and a slight burn in her chest reminded her that her bruised ribs still hadn't fully healed. Each breath was slightly smaller than usual and she fought hard to stay in place as the robot swung around and deflected her teammate's attacks.

Finally, she reached the glass dome and, bracing herself on two arrows below, with one wrist magneted firmly to the hull, she slid her fingers along the join searching for a release, a latch, a weak point, anything.

A sudden jerk smacked her chest against the unforgiving metal and she gasped as her ribs screamed in pain. Taking a few slow, careful breaths she willed herself to relax. Her teammates were calling to each other over the comms, but it was background noise to her. Bruce's voice even drifted in a few times calling out results from the Quinjet's scanners.

Her breath having returned to normal, Natasha once again started examining the glass dome. There was no latch or release she could see, but there was a very slight seam running up and over the centre of it. A weak point.

"Thor," she called out. I'm going to give you a target. Hit it full force and I think we can crack this thing open like an egg. Cap, Hawkeye, get ready to occupy his defenses. Iron Man be on standby to grab this little asshole once he's exposed."

They all called their assent and Natasha slipped a shock disc from her belt. At a brief calm moment in the robot's movement she reached up and slapped it into place right at the place where the seam met the metal edge.

Crawling down a few arrows and re-affixing herself to the hull with her wrist bands she closed her eyes and hugged the metal as close as possible. She heard the telltale whir of Thor winding up and a second later Mjolnir whistled past her head and smashed directly into her marker. The glass split open right along the seam and rained down like hail over her head.

When the storm ceased she released herself and crawled quickly back up the robot's body. She heard Tony screeching in from high above, ready to grab the offender. A pistol clasped in one hand she leapt over the edge and into the cavern the dome had once covered, bracing herself for conflict.

But there was none. There was nothing.

Iron Man came up abruptly several feet away and called it out to the team "Dome was a false, guys, there's nothing here, just another metal plate below."

"Shit," Natasha swore to herself, bending to examine the metal below her. It was the same as the rest of the hull – no hole, no door, no access.

She was just about to run her hands along the edge when she heard Clint scream a warning and a second later a giant claw swung through the air and collided directly with her side.

She must not have been fully present for the short, sharp fall to the ground as a second later she found herself sprawled near the robot's massive feet, the breath knocked completely from her aching chest. Her ribs pulsed with pain, radiating through her back. She gasped ineffectually, trying to draw oxygen to no avail. Clint screamed again and she tried to scramble backwards out of harm's way, but even just lifting her arms sent the pain circling through her body again and she fell to her back, her eyes flicking up.

She knew she wouldn't be able to get out of the way in time. The giant foot lifted high above the ground was going to crush her into mush. The air had just started returning to her lung's desperate pulls, but it was useless, there was no time.

She closed her eyes and pulled in one more breath, a rushing, roaring in her ears drowning out the sound of the robots whirring and screeching.

When the impact came, it was not where she expected. Her breath was pulled away again as a brick wall smashed into her side and she slid ten feet to the left. She whipped her head around to see the Hulk, braced on the ground where she had been laying moments ago, his enormous hands gripping the edge of the robot's foot as he roared in fury.

Focusing on not passing out, Natasha slid down into the mud and took slow careful breaths until her heart rate receded to a little closer to normal. The robot's massive arms pinwheeled as it fought the pressure from the Hulk under its foot. He couldn't be crushed and he gripped the edges of its foot hard enough that it couldn't pull free.

While her body recovered, Natasha let her mind scour the information at hand. The robot had no other glass, viewing areas, cameras or doors, as far as she could tell. That meant whoever was controlling it wasn't inside the robot, but acting remotely. She scanned the treeline, first low, then higher and higher, looking for any clues to his whereabouts.

A glint of light caught her eye and she tilted her head a few times trying to pinpoint it. "Hawkeye," she croaked out, "three o'clock, 15 feet up."

A beat passed. "Got it." A single arrow shot out of his bow and hit the small panel of metal embedded in the otherwise normal-looking tree. There was a spark, a crackle of energy and a small explosion. The air buzzed for a moment before revealing a small pod nestled in the trees, the force field concealing it deadened.

Thor and Iron Man instantly descended on it and after a small scuffle they emerged again, clutching a person between them.

The robot immediately went limp and Hulk roared in victory and began tearing it to shreds.

Steve appeared at Natasha's side and started checking her all over. "I'm fine. I'm okay, Cap. Ribs are just acting up again."

He ignored her completely, speaking to Clint instead. "She's okay. A few abrasions, stitches needed on the right leg and some of the bruised ribs may now be broken, but otherwise fine."

There was no acknowledgment from Clint, but she could feel the tension release through the comm.

"You went down like a sack of potatoes, Nat." Steve helped her sit up, keeping a hand braced against her back.

"Well, I thought it would probably be easier to be unconscious for the landing part of the fall."

He winced at her sarcasm and hauled her gently to her feet. She took a few shallow breaths and gave him the nod. He slipped his arm from her waist to her shoulders and supported her as they made their way over to Tony, Thor and the robot's master.

Tony appeared to be giving some sort of lecture and as they drew closer she realized it wasn't just the immensity of Thor and the Iron Man suit dwarfing their captive – it was just a tiny, teenage girl, her hoodie clutched firmly in the Thunder god's hand.

She stood, scowling and arms crossed, while Tony screamed about the waste of a brilliant mind, half admonishing, half gushing about her creation. Steve rolled his eyes and placed a hand on Tony's shoulder, bringing the rant to a sudden end.

It didn't take long to get the story out of her. Loki's magic wasn't here – the SOS was a trick designed to draw the Avengers to the island so she could take them on. It seemed she was hoping to impress someone, but on that matter she was stubbornly silent.

Clint jogged over to check on Nat and she lost track of the other's conversation while she and her fellow agent performed the same careful check on each other. Assured that they were both in one piece she turned away, ignoring the argument taking place beside her, her attention entirely occupied by the green monster a hundred feet away, shredding the downed robot into scrap metal. Soon he would be out of mech to destroy and then what?

It was long moment before she realized Steve had spoken to her. "I'm sorry, what was that?" she asked.

"Thor is going to take her to the authorities. She's not an enhanced, just an angry kid - "

"Angry, genius kid," Tony corrected, but Steve ignored him.

"I know it's not what we planned, but do you think you can take care of that- of him?" Steve asked, looking across at the mayhem.

She took a calming breath and ran a hand across her eyes. "Sure, yes. Just – just stay well back, okay? I'm not at my speediest right now and I don't want to have to worry about you idiots getting in the way."

"Nat..." Clint started.

"Be quiet, Barton," she ordered.

There was a pause. "Yes, ma'am."

There was a slight scuffle as the others shifted back and Thor flew off with the teenager tucked into his arms. When all was quiet she started slowly across the clearing and towards her transformed friend.

This time he stopped his destruction as soon as he saw her. He stood stock still and watched her carefully as she made her way steadily over the sea of broken glass and mangled metal panels. About fifteen feet away from him she stopped and crouched low, keeping her movements slow and her eyes locked on his.

"Hey, Big Guy." She tried to keep the shake out of her voice, but failed. "We're pretty beat. Any chance we could call it a day?"

He grunted, but stayed where he was.

"You did a great job here. Saved my life actually. Thanks for that."

He tilted his head a little giving her the extremely odd impression of a puppy listening to a new sound. For a long moment they just stared at each other. He seemed calmer, somehow, perhaps more ready to stop than usual, but the transformation didn't begin. She tried to remember what had worked last time.

Pulling her glove off she reached up and held her hand out, palm towards him and he leaned forward, narrowing his eyes and huffing, but sure enough he lifted his hand too. Natasha tipped gently forward reaching out to touch their palms together but he growled and shifted back, out of reach. It took five more, slow repeats before she was able to touch her palm to his. Running her fingers gently along his palm his breathing grew slower and slower until he was hunched, nearly mesmerized, his eyes fixed on her caressing fingers.

Remembering her fall last time Natasha skated her touch up his palm and right off the edge of his long index finger. To her great relief he staggered backwards and, just like last time, began the painful shift into Bruce again.

To her surprise Natasha found herself drifting off on the flight home. The toll on her body this time had been great, her ribs not ready to be field tested had been strained nearly to breaking. JARVIS had scanned her more fully back on the Quinjet and declared her fracture-free, but Clint was still doing a lot of grumbling up in the pilot's seat. Tony was still gushing over the miniature villain they had defeated to a disinterested-looking Bruce, and Steve was flicking through his tablet with a scowl on his face, reviewing the intel that had sent them into a trap.

Gradually her head drifted to Steve's shoulder, who thankfully didn't move, and she found the voices fading first into background noise, and then, into nothing.

Later that night, Natasha was finding it hard to sleep. The thrill of the success of the "lullaby" – as Tony was calling it – was keeping her up, along with an overly curious kitten who had gotten into a package of her hair ties. Combining that with her having had a nap on the trip home, and she gave sleep up as hopeless. She decided to head to the pool for a swim to try and burn off her remaining energy and soothe her aching body. Grabbing her suit and slipping on her bathrobe she padded down the dark halls, barefoot.

There was nothing like the tower at night. It had this way of being loud and busy – all the robots buzzing around and cleaning things – while at the same time being blank, and dark and still.

Suddenly the stillness was broken by a very human, gasping sound.

She turned the corner towards the elevators and found Tony sitting slouched on the ground, half in and half out of the elevator, his back pressed against the edge of the door. He was clutching his chest hard enough to bruise, his fingers scrabbling against his shirt desperately. His eyes were unfocused and his breath came hard and ragged.

"Tony?!" She ran over and fell to her knees in front of him. Her hand went right to his wrist to take his pulse, her eyes scanning his face for an explanation, but as soon as she touched his hand he grabbed her arm.

"I can't – I don't – it's gone, I can't breathe, where is it?" The fingers of his other hand scraped wildly at his shirt some more and she finally understood.

"Tony the shrapnel is gone. You don't need the reactor anymore. You're okay." She placed a hand gently over his chest where the reactor used to be, trying to stop his frantic pawing. She could feel the tangle of scars even through the fabric of his shirt. "You're okay," she repeated calmly.

He was looking at her, but she was sure he was seeing something else and he was hyperventilating so hard there was no way he was getting enough oxygen. Grabbing the back of his neck she threw gentleness to the wind and shoved his face down between his knees. Both the shock and the new position caused him to slow his breathing and soon it was starting to approach normal. She released his neck and let him sit up.

This time when he looked at her he seemed to know her. "Agh, shit why does that keep happening?" He leaned back against the door frame and closed his eyes. "I got in the elevator and suddenly I was..." he trailed off. "...and then I reached for the reactor and I couldn't find it and it was like Obie all over again. __Fuck__ maybe I should have just left it in there. I am __not__ adjusting well. At least this time one of my suits didn't try to kill anyone."

She decided to ignore that. She grabbed his wrist and checked her watch, counting his pulse and his breathing simultaneously.

"How long has it been going on?" she asked, still counting.

"Oh you know, pretty much since I flew through a wormhole into space and almost died. In some ways since Afghanistan, really. Nearly dying kinda sticks with you I guess. I always meant to thank you for waiting to close the portal, you know."

"Actually I didn't wait. I hoped you would make it out, but I wasn't sure."

"Well, I like to think you at least hesitated." He winked.

She smiled; his vitals were returning to normal. Dropping his wrist she leaned back on her heels and carefully avoided the words 'PTSD' and 'trauma', knowing Tony wouldn't respond well to them. "Is it getting better?"

"A bit yeah." He sighed and didn't meet her eyes, speaking quietly. "Mostly just at night now – used to be all the time. Sometimes elevators set me off. Sometimes the dark does. Also sometimes fruit danishes for some reason..." He flashed her a little smile.

"And yet you didn't build any stairs in this thing."

"JARVIS-controlled elevators are much safer. Plus I guess I'm just a masochist."

"I'm not touching that one." She curled her lip when he winked again, but her eyes were joking.

When he looked ready to stand she sprung up and offered her hand, which he took, hauling himself shakily to his feet.

"Umm, I'd appreciate it if you could keep this just between us." He looked at the floor.

"If that's what you want, but you should tell the team."

"Pepper knows. JARVIS knows. I don't want to make it a thing, okay? Rogers suspects, but I don't really think I can deal with a full-on pity party from Captain America. Bruce tends to hover and poke people with thermometers and Barton will try to do some sort of strange psychoanalysis. Thor will probably just call me a baby in that weird nice way he has of insulting people in ye olde English, and then try to get me drunk. Again."

"Okay."

"It is getting better, really. I'm fine." He ran a tired hand through his hair.

"You'd better be. We need you out there."

"Yeah, okay, thanks." He looked genuinely grateful to hear her say that. He stretched his back and groaned. "This old man needs his beauty sleep. Night, Romanoff."

He shuffled off down the hall and she watched him go. She didn't realize she was just standing there staring at nothing until JARVIS' gentle voice brought her back to Earth.

"Will you be needing the elevator, Miss Romanoff?"

"Hmm? Oh, no, sorry JARVIS, I'm just going to go back to bed."

"As you wish." The door hummed closed, but it was a long moment more before Natasha slipped back towards her room.

 **XXX**

The next morning everyone was in the kitchen pigging out after the stress of the day before. Someone had done a bakery run and there were goodies spread out over the table. Natasha slipped into a chair and grabbed the cup of coffee with a big "N" on the lid. She was just contemplating her options when a hand slid a plate in front of her. She looked up to see Tony giving her a kind smile. He flicked his eyes to the plate and leaned down to whisper "you'd better eat it, just in case." He gave her a wink and walked over to the fridge. She looked down at the plate.

It was a fruit danish.

Looking around it became apparent that it was the only danish and he'd been saving it for her. She wondered if Tony had been the one to run out and get treats for everyone. So much for his beauty sleep. At least he didn't seem embarrassed by last night and clearly wanted to make sure there was no awkwardness between them. She took a big bite, giving him a sidelong glance and a half-smile. She was surprised to find she liked being on good terms with Tony Stark.

Also it was cherry and Natasha really liked cherry.

Still shaking off the fuzziness of sleep, Natasha let the conversation around her wash over her as she sipped her coffee and chewed her pastry. Steve told them all that Maria and her team at SI had cracked a connection in some of the base data they'd collected which showed information moving through an old abandoned military base in a tiny Eastern European country called Sokovia. They hadn't had reason to believe anything was there before, but they'd done some satellite recon after that and JARVIS's Loki-magic filters had caught some action. It was their next mission and they flew out next week. She let her brain cut out as Steve droned on, knowing she could catch up with the files later for the details. It wasn't until her name hit her ears that she looked up and saw everyone staring at her.

"Huh?"

Steve repeated himself. "Your birthday on Friday, what do you want to do?"

Natasha had to fight a sudden rising tide of panic. A lifetime of keeping all her personal information an absolute secret was warring with the last few months of domestic comfort. Even Clint didn't know her exact birthday, just an approximate time of year.

"How do you know my birthday?" It came out sharper than she intended and she hated the sudden disappointment and surprise on Steve's face.

"It was in your SHIELD file...sorry...I didn't know you didn't want-"

"No, no. It's fine. Sorry. Just, old habits die hard, you know? I forgot that's all out there on the internet now." She winced.

"I just thought since we're all here...it's fine if you don't want to." Steve looked like someone had just kicked his puppy, but was trying to put on a brave face.

A year ago it would have been the exact opposite of what Natasha wanted. She knew more than just Tony thought she was cold and unfeeling. A little too robotic to really get close to, but they tried and that made her feel things she was pretty sure she'd never felt before. She found herself actually slightly pleased at the idea of her __friends__ having a party for her.

"No, it's okay. Small though. Nothing silly. No presents. Don't let Stark invite anyone."

In the end she was surprised to find they had listened to her. They had two more simple missions that went off without a hitch and then suddenly it was Friday night. Jane and Darcy came and even brought a very nervous Ian with them. Pepper and Maria Hill were there, which was a pleasant surprise. After making the rounds and having a heated discussion with Clint about the most efficient way to take down a target with only a clothespin and a rubber band Natasha grabbed a drink and plunked down on the couch next to Bruce.

"Nice party," he said softly.

"Yeah, as long as they don't make me wear a crown and blow out the candles." The corners of her mouth twitched up.

"So what do you want for your birthday?" Bruce asked leaning close and smiling. It always gave her a little thrill when he played with her instead of getting embarrassed by her flirting. Every now and then he'd rise to the challenge and she always had trouble keeping a smile off her face.

"Well I have this scientist," she started.

"Mhm." Bruce nodded.

"And he can be kinda uptight sometimes."

"Well to be fair, he does have a good reason," Bruce stated.

"I guess, but I think he takes it a little far."

"You didn't answer the question, Natasha."

"All I want for my birthday is to see you have some drinks and chill out." She laughed at the look on his face and poked him in the side.

He gave her a mock serious look. "You say that now, but can you imagine the Other Guy toasted? It would not be pretty."

"True. The Big Guy with no impulse control. He'd probably end up going upstairs with Stark. He's got a pretty vicious crush on that guy."

Bruce finally broke, laughing in his quiet way. "Okay, but only cause it's your birthday and I can't say no to you," Bruce said fondly, standing.

"Are you seriously going to get drunk?" She was pretty sure she was grinning now.

"If I go upstairs with Stark it's all your fault. I've got it pretty bad for him too, you know." He started walking backwards towards the bar where Tony and Clint were doing shots. He pointed at her and raised his eyebrows. "Be careful what you wish for Miss Romanoff!"

She laughed and watched him join the other boys. They were soon laughing and she saw him duck his head and groan the way he always did when around the two of them. She was going to keep track of how many shots they slipped his way, but Steve sat down next to her a moment later and she found herself distracted.

"Good?" he asked.

"Great." She grabbed the sleeve of his shirt and pulled him sideways towards her for a kiss on the cheek.

He watched the crowd by the bar for a while, his smile slowing fading as he realized what was going on. "Are they getting Banner drunk?"

Natasha smiled. "It's my birthday present."

"Natasha!" he scolded her.

"Relax. He can hold his liquor. I just wanted him to loosen up a little. I promise I won't take advantage of him." She waggled her eyebrows at him suggestively.

"Gah, that's not what I meant." Steve blushed.

"It's fine Steve. We were just playing around, he won't drink too much. It's Bruce."

"Yeah, I guess so." Steve relaxed a little but kept his eyes on the group. Stark seemed to be teaching them some kind of drinking game, but she couldn't figure out the rules. Knowing Stark, there were no rules. "So speaking of presents..." Steve handed her a small box.

"Steve..." she said.

"Don't worry, it's just silly. I couldn't help myself." He gave her one of his 'national icon smiles' and she sighed, smiling despite herself.

She opened the box and found a delicate bracelet with five tiny charms on it.

Steve spoke again, quietly enough that no one else could hear."I know you pretend not to be sentimental, but Barton told me the story behind that necklace you wear." Her hand automatically reached up to touch the tiny arrow at her throat. "Tony helped me find it. I just wanted you to know you're not alone."

She picked up the bracelet and examined the charms. There was a little Captain America shield, a blue circle with the pattern of Tony's old arc reactor on it, a dark green jewel, and a disc stamped with the Avengers "A". There was even a tiny Mjolnir hanging off the thin chain. She knew she should think it was silly, but instead she felt instantly and deeply attached to it.

"Thank you." She slipped it on her right wrist, twisting it back and forth and watching the charms catch the light. Steve just gave her knee a gentle squeeze, turning his attention back to the rowdy group by the bar.

Thor came by and dragged Steve off to play darts and shortly after she saw Clint join them. That boy could not resist a chance to show off and the fact that he could barely walk straight would have no impact on his impeccable aim. She chatted with Jane and Darcy for a while and then found herself wandering up to the balcony that overlooked the party room. A moment later she felt someone sidle up next to her.

"How many did they give you?" she asked, smiling.

"I don't know, but I can't feel my tongue so I'm going to go with 'enough,'" Bruce replied. He wasn't slurring, but his voice was softer and warmer than usual and he was standing very close beside her. They looked out over the crowd below. "Best birthday ever?"

"It's the only one I've ever had," she found herself admitting.

"Really?"

"Yeah. It just never mattered before. Clint didn't even know when it was really. I didn't care. I counted my age on the calendar year, not that that mattered much either. Spies just keep going until they either get killed or they get tired and become handlers. We don't retire."

"You could, you know. Now."

"I guess. I don't know what I'd do with myself."

"You're fascinating," Bruce said suddenly, turning to face her, but having a little trouble focusing on her face.

"And you're drunk," she told him fondly.

"No seriously. When I first met you I thought you were all about the job, I honestly didn't think you had a personality, but you do, a big one. And you spend all this time and energy hiding it. You're so hard to read." He leaned forward, looking into her eyes and she found herself a little stunned. "Why?"

"What?" She shook herself a little, honestly not sure what the question was.

"Why do you hide who you are?"

"It keeps me alive," she answered, automatically.

"Not anymore."

They just stood there for a long time. He was right and it was what she had been thinking about most since DC. Steve had said the same thing in the car so long ago. Nobody can be friends with a blank slate.

"I'm a ghost," she whispered, knowing he wouldn't understand what she was talking about, but needing to say it out loud anyway.

He reached out and ever so gently touched her hair where it hung about her face. "I don't think so."

"Am I your friend, Bruce? Sometimes I feel like being friends is something I can't do."

"Of course you're my friend." He looked genuinely distraught that she might think otherwise. "You and Tony are my best friends."

She gave him a smile and poked him gently in the chest. "Would you say that if you weren't 'toasted' right now."

But he looked utterly sober when he leaned back and looked at her, concerned. "Of course I would. I'll say it again tomorrow."

Her smile was honest, but a little sad. She turned back to watch the party, rolling her empty beer bottle between her hands. "You know I never thought I'd get this old. I thought I would go down fighting years ago." She started picking at the label on the bottle. "There are worse ways to go. I never could have seen myself here. This is...bizarre."

"Well, I'm glad you're here."

Despite still being completely sober Natasha was starting to worry she would say something she'd regret so she rapidly changed the subject. "I'm trying to find Steve a girlfriend."

Bruce actually seemed surprised. "Oh, I, uh, I actually thought you two had something kinda..." He trailed off, gesturing vaguely at Steve.

"What? No. Really? No."

Bruce chuckled at her surprise. "Sorry, you just seem to get along really well."

She laughed a little. "We didn't always. But, seriously, we're just friends. He's not...who I want." She lowered her voice and ducked her head, but as usual Bruce didn't seem to notice.

"What about Maria? Or Helen?" Bruce suggested, getting back to the matter at hand.

"Doctor Cho?" Now it was Natasha's turn to be surprised. "I thought you and her..."

Bruce laughed. "I don't really go in for the relationship thing. Too risky. Besides, I think she has a painful crush on Thor anyway."

Natasha didn't ask what kind of risk he meant, but she was pretty sure it wasn't a broken heart he was afraid of. "Steve's too picky."

"Oh well, we tried!" Bruce laughed tossing his hands sloppily in the air in defeat, showing the effects of the alcohol more and more.

A similarly tipsy Tony appeared at her other side and handed her a bowl of pretzels. "Happy Birthday, Natasha!" He was definitely slurring.

"We're getting Steve a date," Bruce informed him.

"Fuck," Tony breathed, grabbing a handful of pretzels and clutching them to his chest. "If __that__ man needs help getting a date, how can there be hope for anyone else?"

"No, no," Bruce assured him. "It's cause he's __picky__."

"Ahh." Tony nodded like he'd unlocked the secrets of the universe, but also kind of like he'd completely forgotten what they were talking about. "C'mon, Romanoff, Thor wants to sing you a traditional Asgardian birthday song. JARVIS is all ready to film, I'm going to put it on YouTube."

The party went well into the night and by the end they were all sprawled out on couches and chairs, Tony's cleaning robots bustling about collecting beer bottles and discarded snack foods. True to his word Bruce had been very relaxed and had fun. He even joined in when Thor taught them all how to sing the very complex, multi-part song.

Darcy and Ian had gone upstairs, as had Tony and Pepper. Jane and Thor were in a corner standing so close together Natasha was sure they'd slip out any minute. Steve and Hill were having a very animated conversation on the other side of the coffee table and Nat wondered vaguely if maybe Bruce had been on to something earlier. Either that or things were about to get violent, she couldn't actually tell. As for Bruce he was half passed out on the couch next to hers, face down, one hand hanging off the edge and flicking idly on his tablet which lay on the floor, saying "I am going to bed now." every five minutes or so without moving.

Natasha was feeling very droopy herself. She'd had so many birthday drinks passed her way in the end, even her Russian blood was a bit pickled. She tipped sideways on the couch and wondered if Tony's cleaning robot could take her upstairs. Just then Clint's face loomed into view as he crouched down in front of her.

"Hey, Babe." He smiled.

"I'm sleepy," she whispered.

"I know." Clint had this annoying habit of getting very drunk, but also burning through it very quickly. He had the metabolism of a hummingbird. He was always the first to be falling off his chair, but was usually completely sober a few hours later, no matter how much more he had to drink, and he never seemed to have a hangover.

"I think you're a mutant," she informed him.

"Maybe, but you love me anyway." He slid his arms under her legs and back and lifted her up. "You're only getting VIP treatment cause it's your birthday, you know. Tomorrow it's back to using you as a human shield, letting Steve find you passed out on the couch in the morning when he gets up for his sickeningly early run, pushing you off tall buildings, that kind of thing."

"Okay." As they passed Bruce's couch she reached her arm down and ruffled his hair. He groaned in response and waved his arm vaguely in her direction. She smiled and tucked her face against Clint's chest, closing her eyes. She knew Clint liked getting to take care of her sometimes. It didn't happen very often, and he would mock her mercilessly for it in the morning, but Clint was a family man through-and-through and when he was away from the farm he missed having someone to tuck in.

She must have dozed off because she suddenly found herself curled up in bed with the lights off and Clint gone. Her shoes were off, Steve's present was carefully placed on her nightstand and the covers were tucked around her shoulders. She slipped back off to sleep with a smile on her face.

She woke up late, but the tower was quiet. Everyone seemed to be taking the opportunity to relax a little. On her way to get coffee from the kitchen she passed Jane in her bathrobe bringing two mugs of coffee upstairs. She gave her a little smile and was glad to get one back. Steve was in the kitchen, reading the paper and eating his usual enormous breakfast. He didn't speak to her, probably having learned the hard way that being the only one without a hangover the next morning meant you should be quiet and patient or risk being slapped.

"Morning," she said and he looked up from his paper.

"Good morning. How are you feeling?"

"Like a mouse died in my mouth, but otherwise fine. Anyone else up?" she asked.

"Jane was just here getting coffee. Darcy came down in a sheet earlier." He blushed scarlet. "I don't think we'll be seeing them much today... no sign of Tony or Pepper. Maria went home last night. Bruce was up, but I don't think he's feeling great. He walked in, stood in front of the fridge for five minutes and then walked out. I'm not sure he noticed I was here." Steve looked concerned, but Natasha had seen Bruce do that several times. It usually meant he was deep in some new project and had forgotten to sleep, but she suspected last night's revels had something to do with it this time.

Filling two coffee cups she said goodbye to Steve and made her way to Bruce's lab. He was sitting in his chair, face pressed down on the edge of his desk, arms hanging limply below.

"Hey Doc," she said quietly, sitting on the edge of the desk next to him and pushing the coffee towards him.

"I know it looks like I am very hungover and possibly dying," he mumbled, "but the truth is I have a very strong constitution and this is just an important part of the scientific process."

"That's what I assumed." The corners of Natasha's mouth twitched up.

"For all you know I could be solving the energy crisis right now."

"I'm sure you are."

"Actually I'm dying." He groaned and sat up, reaching for the coffee gratefully, giving her a smile.

"You should have slept in," she said gently.

"I had an idea," he waved his hand vaguely at the screen. "Had to see if it would work."

She found herself desperately wanting to reach out and touch his hair again, but she kept her arms at her sides and her face blank. "Thanks for yesterday, it was fun."

"It was." He nodded and then grimaced. "What I remember of it anyway."

"Oh c'mon, you weren't that drunk." She gave him a gentle shove on the arm and he laughed.

"No, you're right. It was fun." She stood up to leave him to his science and his headache when he reached out suddenly and grabbed her arm. It was a testament to their comfort with each other that her immediate reaction wasn't to flip him off his chair and twist his arm behind his back. Instead she just stopped, meeting his gaze. "I wasn't joking, you know. You are my friend."

Her stomach flipped as she remembered their banter last night. He looked serious though and she reveled in the little thrill it gave her.

He continued. "I never would have come here if it weren't for Tony, and I never would have stayed if it weren't for you. You make me feel safe."

She wanted to say something, but she wasn't sure what so she just reached out and ran her fingers through his hair like she wanted to. Something in his expression shifted, like he was seeing something for the first time, but he didn't say anything. She gave him another smile, a proper one, and walked out of the office, his fingers sliding off her arm.

She found herself fiddling frequently with the charms on her bracelet, the arrow carefully detached from its chain to join the others, the green stone a comforting weight against the inside of her wrist.

Over the next month Bruce and Natasha practiced the "lullaby" every chance they got. Bruce was hesitant to transform if it wasn't necessary so instead they rehearsed the movements over and over with him in human form, hoping his other form would remember the plan.

Natasha would hold out a hand, palm out, he would follow suit, she would turn her hand palm up and he would place his hand, also palm up, in hers. Nat would slowly bring her hand above his and slide her fingers along his wrist. When he seemed to calm she would slide her fingers off the end of his fingers.

Whenever she did Bruce claimed he would think "Bruce-like thoughts" and they hoped that would be enough to solidify the routine. A few times he got himself worked up to near-transformation and then Natasha would start the lullaby. He always came back down quickly and they both had high hopes that it would continue to be successful.

Bruce continued to come along on missions and provide support, but things had been easy since the robot. For the most part the HYDRA bases were haphazard and badly managed. Head after head was cut off and it seemed like finally two more were not taking its place. Without really discussing it, they all knew that in a pinch, if they had to call the Hulk in, Bruce would do it. Thankfully, they hadn't had to.

In a break between missions Tony had flown off to meet Maria Hill and go over what they recovered from the lab hit. He was gone for two weeks and Natasha was surprised to suddenly run into him coming out of Steve's room.

"Tony." She did a little double take and he looked up from his tablet. "I thought you were still with Hill."

"Just got back. Had to pop in to tell O Captain, my Captain the good news." He gestured to Steve's open door.

"What's the good news?"

He grinned. "We figured it out, what they were after. Turns out it wasn't Bruce at all. She was smart all right." He leaned back against the wall as he explained. "Sanders was in possession of a very cool piece of technology. I still don't know how it works, it's dipping in the nerve-racking area of magic which I try to stay firmly out of. Basically, those tattoos are what we expected. They give the bearer some special abilities. Sort of designed mutants. Sanders herself had a serpent – her 'gift' was persuasion. She had a member on her team with a gear tattoo – you might have noticed it – he was the one that took down the security system so effectively. JARVIS doesn't seem to do well with magic...

"Anyway, the silver-tongued reporter just happened to meet Agent Mark Smith at a bar in DC. Who's Agent Smith you ask? Good question. He was a SHIELD agent, one of the ones who disappeared shortly before it fell. He worked in R&D and Research.

"He told her a lot, no surprise there. He told her about some of the cool things he was working on, including examining Loki's scepter. They met again and he passed her more and more info and she started putting together a team, giving them tattoos that would help them break into SHIELD and get it out. She wanted it desperately. Then SHIELD went under, Smith disappeared and so did the scepter. So she was pissed. She wanted to find it and she knew a lot about it. She knew it was similar to the Tesseract, and that it produced gamma radiation."

Natasha looked up at him sharply at that.

"Yup. I honestly can't believe how stupid we were that it never crossed our minds that we could track more than just Bruce with Veronica. We designed it with him in mind. We tailored it to focus on him, to block out other sources of gamma radiation because we wanted it to find __him__ quickly and effectively.

"Sanders wanted to find the scepter. She took Bruce in and kept him un-Hulked to keep him out of the way so he wouldn't set off Veronica's systems. With a few small alterations she would be able to find out exactly where the scepter was."

"Did it work, did she find it?" Natasha asked.

Tony smiled and pushed off the wall his eyes twinkling. "Nope!" he said cheerfully. "She didn't get to finish her search before our little smash and grab."

Natasha smiled at him. "But..."

He leaned in, "But I just did."

Two days later they packed their go-bags, donned their tac suits and piled into the Quinjet, on their way to a tiny Eastern European country called Sokovia.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight:**

Hill communicated Tony's suspicions about the scepter to her team, and within hours they had fresh intel that none other than Baron Strucker had been spotted in the area. If anyone still needed convincing, that had done it. Strucker had been deep in the infected SHIELD command and had conveniently disappeared at about the same time as a large number of Chitauri related artifacts.

They planned quickly and efficiently, they would come in hard, decimate the defences and get Strucker on the run before any of the artifacts could be used in a dangerous way.

Things didn't exactly go as planned.

Almost immediately they realized they were horribly out-gunned. Despite the relative quiet Strucker had been operating in, the forces he had managed to amass were immense. When their first advance failed to bring them even within sight of the building's walls, Cap reluctantly called a Code Green and less than a minute later the Hulk swarmed onto the battlefield, charging his way through anyone stupid enough to open fire.

They pushed towards the base and it became clearer and clearer that Loki's scepter must be here, fueling the power that held them at bay.

Natasha was working her way through a group of Hydra soldiers, half listening to Stark's attempts to break through the forcefield when a familiar voice cried out in pain to her left.

"Clint!" she yelled, running through the snow to where he lay prone. "Clint's hit!" she called to Steve skidding in beside him and whipping out her med pack.

Gunfire shot over her head making it hard to focus on first aid and she called out frustratedly, "Someone want to deal with that bunker?"

A green monstrosity roared out of the trees and plowed through the bunker sending shrapnel, concrete and Hydra agents flying through the air.

"Thank you," she replied quietly, a little stunned.

Clint's side lay ripped open and bleeding and she pressed a foam pack against the wound, hearing it expand to stop the bleeding while she pulled the top off a stim-shot and pressed it against Clint's neck.

Most of her attention was on Clint, but she heard Tony celebrate as he knocked out the power grid and Cap and Thor discuss their plan.

"Clint's hit pretty bad, guys, we're going to need evac," she informed them.

"I can get Barton to the jet," Thor broadcast. "The sooner we're gone, the better. You and Stark secure the scepter."

"Copy that," Cap said, his comm crackling with nearby gunfire.

A moment later Thor hit the ground a few feet away and after a quick scan on Clint's injuries he scooped him up and whipped him away towards the jet.

Natasha switched her Bites back on and darted through the trees only to see the Iron Legion herding the remaining Hydra mercenaries into groups. "We're locked down out here," she informed the team.

"Then get to Banner," Steve called back. "Time for a lullaby."

It wasn't hard to find him, He'd slowed down after the last bunker was destroyed and was now almost half-heartedly destroying a crashed ATV. She hoped it would make it easier to bring him down.

"Hey Big Guy," she called and the Hulk swung around aggressively, grimacing at her. She took a slow breath and came to a stop. Their practice with the lullaby at home gave her encouragement, but she still had to take a moment to calm her rapid heartbeat, tamp down the buzz of battle and breathe. She pushed away thoughts of Clint, lying hurt in the jet, Steve and Tony's urgent voices on the comms and the bite of the cold weather. It was just her, and him.

"Sun's getting real low." He bared his teeth and roared at her, but didn't run off. Pulling her gloves off she crouched low and held her hand up like they had practiced.

It was simple and perfect. The Hulk grumbled and groaned, but followed the movements like he'd done it a hundred times alongside Bruce, and when she slid her fingers away he staggered backwards and the green slipped away to be replaced with brown.

Natasha couldn't help but smile as she turned away to let him recover in privacy.

Once he was himself again they began the long trudge back to the Quinjet in silence. Bruce's breathing was heavy and his grimace betrayed the pain he still felt after each transformation, though he said nothing.

Back on the jet he dove into doctor mode and made sure Clint was stable before settling on a bench with his headphones on. Once they were in the air Natasha checked on Clint once more before making her way over to crouch in front of Bruce. The tense lines around his eyes told her he was not comfortable with the violent role he had played today.

"Hey," she gave him a little smile. "The lullaby worked better than ever."

He smiled back, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Just wasn't expecting a Code Green." He fiddled with his headphone cable, Maria Callas' voice still wafting soothingly from them.

"You hadn't been there, there would've been double the casualties," she reminded him. "My best friend would've been a treasured memory."

He smiled again, more fully, but he was still closed off, looking at the floor, warring with a grimace that kept flickering across his face. "You know, sometimes exactly what I want to hear isn't exactly what I want to hear."

His eyes met hers and her chest clenched a little. "How long before you trust me?" she asked.

He shook his head gently, his words barely more than a whisper. "It's not you I don't trust."

Natasha smiled a little, but it fell quickly, knowing that no amount of gratitude or comfort from her would make the weight of dead men any lighter on his shoulders. But maybe, with time, the team could convince him that a little destruction from him could save them a lot of destruction without him.

She called out to where Steve and Thor were examining the scepter. "Thor, report on the Hulk."

"The gates of Hel are filled with the screams of his victims," he reported happily. Natasha swung around to glare at him while Bruce deflated beside her.

Thor quickly and pathetically backtracked. "But not the screams of the dead, of course. No, uh, wounded screams. Mainly whimpering, a great deal of complaining and tales of sprained deltoids and, uhh gout."

Natasha turned back to Bruce, concerned, but was pleased to find him giving her his secret smile. Their eyes met and she felt that little twinge of something that just wouldn't let her go. A little flutter tickled its way up her spine. The moment was cut short by Tony calling out.

"Hey, Banner, Dr. Cho is on her way in from Seoul. Is it okay if she sets up in your lab?"

"Yeah, she knows her way around." Despite Bruce's insistence that there was nothing between them, Nat couldn't help but feel a little twist of jealousy at Dr. Cho's name. Even with nothing romantic there, she had a part of Bruce that Nat would never understand. The way he lit up when they dove into the science – she could never bring that out of him the same way.

Back at Avengers Tower Dr. Cho was all ready to go and immediately brought Clint in for treatment. Her machine began the lengthy process of repairing his skin while Bruce and Cho gushed over the beauty of the science.

"I'll be made of plastic," Clint insisted.

"You'll be made of you, Mr. Barton," Cho corrected. "Your own girlfriend won't be able to tell the difference."

"I don't have a girlfriend," Clint said, his eyes sliding up to Nat's as they shared the private joke.

"That I can't fix." She smiled. "This is the next thing, Tony. Your clunky metal suits are gonna be left in the dust."

"That is exactly the plan. And, Helen, I expect to see you at the party on Saturday."

"Unlike you, I don't have a lot of time for parties," she said sternly, turning back to her work. There was a pause and then she spoke again, aiming for nonchalance, but failing horribly. "Will... Thor...be there?"

Natasha smiled.

Let it never be said that Tony Stark didn't know how to throw a party.

He'd invited an eclectic mix of people, as usual, some vets from Sam's VA seemed particularly fond of Thor, and Rhodey hit it off with a group of young up-and-comers from Stark Industries. Clint had sucked Helen Cho deep into conversation, probably about home renos or plaid or something, but bless her, she seemed into it.

Sam and Steve were deep in a game of pool, their third after tying up one-one. Steve took his jacket off and rolled up his sleeves, putting on his serious face, but Sam was unswayed, laughing as he carefully lined up.

You could see the effect Pepper had on Tony even in the way his parties came together. The music, the guests, even the drinks were mellower than when Nat had masqueraded as his PA. It was nice, soothing. Steve was their fearless leader, but Tony was like a litmus test of team morale – if he was happy, the team was happy, if he was stressed, they were all screwed. Whether that was because he reflected loudly what they were all feeling, or because his moods had a tendency to rub off on other people, Natasha didn't know. Either way, it was nice to see everyone having a good time after a mission.

Natasha had a chat with Rhodey and one with Maria Hill. She got hit on by a nice kid from SI, but he had scurried off pretty quickly when he realized who she was.

Somehow she'd gone most of the night without seeing hide nor hair of one Doctor Banner. She caught a few glimpses of him chatting with a party guest, or nursing a drink in a corner, looking uncomfortable, but they hadn't spoken a word all night so it was a welcome sight when she looked up from the drink she was mixing to see Bruce sidle up to the bar across from her.

Things had wound down a bit by then, many guests had gone home and the music had quieted to a pleasant jazz. Both bartenders had been called away to help a very drunk, and kind of familiar-looking, older man wobble over to the elevators so Nat had slid behind the bar to mix her own drink when Bruce came into view. He gave her a relaxed smile – reminding her a little of her birthday party – making her wonder how much he'd already had to drink.

He pulled his glasses off and leaned against the bar. "How'd a nice girl like you wind up working in a dump like this?" he joked.

She smiled at his flirty tone and shot a look his way, falling into the patter with him. "Fella done me wrong." She thought about all the fellas that had done her wrong to lead to her standing here today. Clint defying orders to pull her out of the hands of the KGB, Fury giving her a shot, Steve giving her something to fight for after SHIELD went down.

"You got lousy taste in men, kid," Bruce quipped.

She grinned. Of course, there was one particular man that was more her taste than anything else right now. More her taste then the second cocktail she was garnishing for herself. Darcy's words sprung unbidden into her mind and she realized if any time was the time to make a real move, this was it.

She switched her tack, handing a drink across to him and leaning across the bar top to capture his gaze. "He's not so bad. Well, he has a temper. Deep down he's all fluff." His eyes flicked down, recognizing the change in her tone. "Fact is, he's not like anybody I've ever known. All my friends are fighters. And here comes this guy, spends his life avoiding the fight because he knows he'll win."

Bruce's lips quirked, squirming around the compliment, but too shy to let the conversation get too serious. "Sounds amazing."

"He's also a huge dork," Natasha amended, pitying the way he shifted, pinned under her appraising eyes. That got an eye roll as she took a sip from her drink and she hastily added, "Chicks dig that." That earned her a smile, but he said nothing. This __whatever it was__ was on the edge of a knife, ready to tip one way or the other. She wanted to make herself clear, but leave him to tip it over, he needed that sense of control, she knew. "So what do you think, should I fight this? Or run with it?"

He answered quickly, but stumbled over his words, leaning even closer towards her. "Run with it, right? Or, did he, was he, what'd he do that was so...wrong to you?" She recalled her words at his approach and she smiled, knowing what he was thinking.

"Not a damn thing," she replied, meeting his eyes seriously, trying to show him that she trusted him, wanted him even. Not really sure how they'd suddenly gotten here, Natasha opened her mouth to say something heartfelt, but a rustle of movement in the corner of her eye heralded Steve's arrival and she opted for a smooth exit instead. "But never say never." She picked up her drink, flashed him a quick wink and stepped away, meeting Steve's eyes as she brushed past, knowing what the captain would see there.

She took a few steps up towards the balcony before glancing back to see Steve smiling and saying something apparently eye-opening to Bruce before starting to walk away too. Bruce just stared into his drink, gobsmacked. Steve caught her gaze over his head and raised his eyebrows playfully at her. She gave a tiny salute and muttered to herself "thank you, Captain America" before finishing her ascent to the comfy chairs above.

It was a good night.

The balcony gave Nat a nice view of the happy goings-on below and she entertained herself with people-watching. She studiously avoided watching one particular people, wanting to give him the time to approach her for once, now that she'd gone beyond their gentle ribbing and into full-on flirting.

A pretty brunette in a vivid blue dress was hovering uneasily by the stairs. She kept throwing glances towards a tall girl in a white tunic who was chatting intently with Sam. Nat recognized the two girls as having come in together and filled in the rest of the story herself. Tall Girl got swooped by Falcon, Brunette didn't know anyone else here and was not pleased about being cast aside.

Natasha pulled out her phone.

 _ _Cute brunette by the stairs, blue dress, got dumped by her friend for Feathers over there. Bet the Cap can wipe that pout off ;)__

She watched while Steve paused in his march across the room to pull out his phone. He stared at the screen for a moment and then glanced around. His eyes alighted first on the girl and then flitted up to where Nat smirked down at him. She gave him a flirty little wave and he sighed.

He stood there for a long moment and then, to Nat's intense surprise, he walked over to the girl and spoke. The poor thing immediately blushed scarlet, but she joined him in a walk back over to the bar and he pulled out a beer for her, the two falling into conversation.

Well, score one for the Black Widow's Matchmaker Service, Nat mentally high-fived herself.

Time wound on and most of the other party-goers drifted out. Steve walked his new friend to the elevator and Nat swore she saw a number being exchanged though Steve was tight-lipped about it all later.

Steve, Tony, and Clint convinced her to join them for a round of darts, but her eye was off tonight and she and Steve were getting trounced by Tony and Clint.

Her dart once more hit the wire and split the wrong way, giving her trip ones, instead of 20s. "Блядь!" she swore, under her breath but Clint caught it.

"Woho! If the Cap could speak Russian, you'd be in so much trouble right now!"

"Отвали," she replied, lovingly, flipping him off. He chuckled and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Steve just sighed and waved them off, picking up the darts to take his turn.

After they had been thoroughly crushed, Steve and Natasha declined a rematch and headed for the couches instead. JARVIS informed them that all party guests had now returned home and the six Avengers plus Maria Hill and Helen Cho were the last remaining in the tower.

Clint and Tony wandered over to the instruments Tony left scattered about the stage area and started up a truly awful rendition of Back in Black, Tony on guitar and Clint hammering enthusiastically, but without rhythm, on the drums.

Nat settled deep into one of the cushy armchairs and watched Steve sweetly offer his jacket to a cold-looking Maria who sat cross-legged on the floor, back against the couch, shoes off, nursing a beer. She tucked her arms through the sleeves and shot him a grateful smile. He collapsed backwards onto the opposite couch and struck up conversation with Thor on battle tactics.

Natasha felt a presence at her shoulder and smiled as Bruce tucked into the couch angled next to her own seat.

"Hi." He smiled shyly.

"Hey, Doc." She took a swig of her beer and watched as he fiddled nervously with the fabric on the arm of the sofa. "So mission accomplished."

"Yeah?" He looked up at her questioningly.

"I saw Steve get that brunette's number before she left."

Bruce gave an honest laugh and leaned comfortably towards her. "Well then, what's he doing giving his jacket to Maria?" he whispered conspiratorially.

"It's a phone number, Bruce, not an engagement ring." She grinned. "Let the man play the field a little."

"You're incorrigible."

"Yes, I am," she agreed with a wink. She was so engrossed in flirting with her scientist, she barely registered Clint and Tony returning, flopping onto the floor and a chair respectively and taking up animated conversation with Thor and Steve.

"Remind me never to get on your bad side." He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously. "You're scary enough as an ally."

She looked up at him through her eyelashes and lowered her voice. "Why Bruce, you haven't even properly gotten to know my good side yet." She was rewarded by a scarlet blush making it's way up his neck. She was about to see if she could get it to travel any higher when she was distracted by everyone's cheers as Clint challenged Tony to lift Thor's hammer.

Tony stalked off and returned with his Iron Man gauntlet, much to everyone's glee, but not even with War Machine's added oomph could he budge it. All eyes moved to Bruce and with a wink at Natasha he gripped the handle. His faux rage earned him a smile on the only face he was hoping to see one and he sunk back into the couch grinning.

Natasha heard her codename and looked up from her beer to see everyone looking at her. Bruce raised his eyebrows and gestured in her direction. "Oh, no no." She shook them off. "That's not a question I need answered."

"All deference to the man who wouldn't be king, but it's rigged," Tony explained.

"You bet your ass," Clint agreed, clapping him on the back.

Maria piped up, pointing her bottle in Clint's direction accusingly. "Steve, he said a bad language word."

Steve sighed and looked at Tony. "Did you tell everyone about that?"

Tony smiled, but ignored his question, knowing Steve knew the answer was. "Yes, absolutely." He pointed to Mjolnir again instead. "The handle's imprinted, right? Like a security code...'Whosoever is carrying Thor's fingerprints' is, I think, the literal translation?"

"Yes, well that's uh, that's a very very interesting theory. I have a simpler one." The hammer hummed as Thor snatched it off the table and tossed in in a graceful somersault. "You're all not worthy." They all laughed and shook their heads, scoffing.

The sound system which had gone quiet with the end of the last album suddenly screeched with feedback and Tony pulled his StarkPhone out of his pocket, chagrined. His hand stilled, though as a groan echoed out from the stage. As one they turned to see a massively damaged Iron Legion robot stagger out from behind a partition wall.

Wires hung loosely from its mangled body, twisted awkwardly to the side. It took a few more steps towards them and spoke, its voice low, menacing, and unknown.

"Nooo, how could you be worthy? You're all killers," it hummed, thoughtfully.

Natasha's blood ran cold, the thought she churned about in her mind on a daily basis suddenly given voice.

"Stark," Steve said coolly, his eyes fixed on the android, his body stiff, instantly in Captain mode.

"JARVIS?" Tony questioned, but there was no response.

The robot spoke again. "I'm sorry, I was asleep. Or...I was a dream." It didn't really seem to be talking directly to them, though it turned its mangled face in their direction. Its words were pensive and confused, like it was trying to figure its own self out.

Tony was muttering to JARVIS, but there was still no response.

"There was this...terrible noise...and I was tangled in... in...strings. Had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy."

"You killed someone?" Steve asked.

"Wouldn't've been my first call. But, down in the real world, we're faced with ugly choices," the thing answered back, still shifting and rocking manically across the floor as if unable to balance when still.

Thor spoke up, shifting ever to slightly in front of a very frightened looking Helen Cho. "Who sent you?"

There was a slight squeak and then Tony's voice came out of the robot, scratchy, like a recording. "I see a suit of armor around the world."

Tony blanched and Bruce looked up suddenly towards him. "Ultron!"

"In the flesh," it answered. Natasha shifted her gaze to Bruce. His face was twisted in shock, eyes locked with Tony's. The thing spoke on. "Or, no, not yet. Not this...chrysalis. But I'm ready." The tension in the room ratcheted up and Natasha heard the distinct sound of Maria releasing the safety on her gun. There was a subtle, but palpable shift as the Avengers slid into attack-ready positions.

"I'm on a mission," it told them.

"What mission?" She couldn't help but ask.

Its cold, jack-o-lantern-like face turned to her, its jagged mouth looking even more like a hideous grin, and she felt its penetrating gaze bore into her."Peace in our time," it answered and the room exploded.

Three Iron Legion robots burst through the wall and flew at them. Natasha immediately switched into bodyguard mode – after over a year of keeping Bruce safe, she wasn't about to stop now. Grabbing his arm she made a break for the nearest cover – the bartop.

She flew over the top and down to the ground on the other side, exploding glass all around her. She pulled Bruce down too and he landed hard on top of her.

"Sorry," he said hastily and it was just like Bruce to apologize for getting a faceful of her chest while they were fleeing from an evil, murdering, robot thing.

Bruce looked fine, but panic was welling up in her own gut and she couldn't help but picture a swath of wrathful Hulk tearing through the tower. She grabbed a handful of his jacket and looked him straight in the eye. "Don't turn green!" she begged.

"I won't," he assured her, shaking his head urgently, and she believed him.

She whipped a pistol out of one of her many Stark Tower hiding spots under the bar, and opened fire on the nearest legionnaire. She heard scrambling behind her and sighed internally. Of course Bruce was going to try to fight. No offense to her sweet little scientist, but as long as his skin was pink and cream and not green, he wasn't going to be taking any bad guys down.

She needed to get him somewhere safer, somewhere out of the line of fire. If he turned inside the tower, in the middle of battle, it would be bad for all of them. Possibly bad for all of Manhattan.

"Come on!" she shouted, pulling him towards her again and making a scrambling dash for the stairs. Repulsor blasts exploded against the wall in front of her, but she pulled Bruce on, getting off a few shots at the flying robot. Shoving Bruce hard behind a wall strut she pressed her body against his to hold him still and braced herself against the wall, darting out to open fire whenever she got a clear shot.

She was well-trained. And professional. And in kind of a life-or-death situation. But it didn't mean, as adrenaline spiked through her body and her heart beat hard against her chest, that there wasn't a tiny part of her brain that thrilled at the long press of his thigh against her hip, and the warm strength of his chest at her shoulder.

Thor and Steve took out one legionnaire just before it could shoot a cowering Helen Cho into oblivion and Tony used his intimate knowledge of their wiring to disable another. Nat shot at the last until Clint was able to get Cap his shield and with one blow it flew to pieces, useless.

The one Bruce had called Ultron still stood against the wall, watching instead of participating, unphased by their quick dispatching of its mercenaries. When the last one fell it scoffed "that was dramatic." Nat did a quick head count, everyone was panting and bleeding, but safe and whole.

"I'm sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through," the thing continued. "You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change." Nat flicked her eyes to the scientist standing next to her. He looked cold and scared, he knew something he wasn't sharing. What had he and Tony done?

"How is humanity saved if it's not allowed to...evolve? With these? These puppets?" It picked up the broken head of a ruined legionnaire and crushed its titanium skull in its grasp. "There's only one path to peace. The Avengers' extinction."

Thor suddenly burst into action, sending Mjolnir whipping across the room in a flash. It smashed fully into Ultron's metal chest sending parts and sparks flying off its already damaged form.

It's eerie voice wafted out of its crumpled body, singing softly, "I had strings, but now I'm free..." It tapered off and the last blue light flickered into darkness.

There was a long pause before anybody moved and then as one they stormed to the elevator and up to the lab. Steve helping Maria inch along, her bare foot bleeding, and Clint with a strong arm under a distressed looking Helen's back.

Rhodey was already there when they opened the door and his eyes met Steve's right away. "The scepter is gone."

Thor immediately burst into full Asgardian garb and shot through a window and out of the tower.

With a collective sigh they bustled into action. Tony and Bruce hauled the remains of Ultron's body up to the lab to examine it. Natasha popped down the hall to her room to check on The Little Guy and slip into more comfortable clothing before pulling up a terminal and diving into the Avengers' computer system.

Twenty minutes later they were all gathered again, Steve and Maria had each made some phone calls, and the latter had started the process of picking glass out of her foot with tweezers. Nat couldn't help but flash back to the Bernini op. It had only been a little over a year ago, but it felt like a lifetime. Before she really got to know Bruce, before the tower had become her home and this team had become her family.

And now she had a terrible feeling it was all going to be pulled apart. The looks on Bruce and Tony's faces spoke novels. This was no mystery guest to them. Ultron was something they knew about.

Her pokes and prods into the tower's computer systems were showing a red-hot trail of activity through them. He'd been in everything and she shared that discovery with the group.

The argument turned hot quickly, Rhodey and Maria worrying about the kind of information Ultron had access to, Steve and Natasha more worried about his plans for them. Tony shut everyone up with a flick of his wrist. A hologram appeared – one they all knew well at that point. It was a map of JARVIS' code turned 3D. Spend more than five minutes with Tony Stark in his lab and he'd be sure to show off his greatest creation. Most people were surprised to find it wasn't the suit, but as Tony said – the suit was nothing without him and he was nothing without JARVIS.

But this wasn't JARVIS. The code was mangled and twisted, shredded and ripped like something had burst through it from the inside out.

JARVIS was dead.

Natasha could see the catch in Bruce's shoulders when he reached out to touch the untouchable, wrapping his fingers around the broken code as if he could coax it back into place. "This isn't strategy," he whispered, "this is...rage" the unspoken __and I would know__ hanging in the air around him.

Just then Thor burst back into the room, cape whipping around him and wasted no time wrapping his fingers around Tony's neck and lifting him straight off the ground.

"It's going around," Clint muttered, catching Nat's eye, both preparing to step in between if necessary. Steve, however, saved them the trouble.

"Thor! The Legionnaire?" he barked out.

Thor let Tony slip to the ground, but his eyes still burned with anger. "Trail went cold about 100 miles out but it's headed north, and it has the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it, again."

Natasha spoke up. "The genie's out of that bottle. Clear and present is Ultron." Tony walked over to one of the terminals and started to type.

"I don't understand. You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?" Helen asked.

All was quiet for a moment and then Tony made a choked noise and Bruce looked surprised. As one they all suddenly realized the noise was laughter. Tony Stark was laughing.

Bruce shook his head and made a noise of discouragement, but it only seemed to push Tony on. Nat could see Thor and Steve getting angry, but she was distracted by something else, something in the hunch of Tony's shoulders and when he turned around, the look in his eyes. They were tight and cold and not entirely present.

"You think this is funny?" Thor was looking dangerous again.

"No." Tony stilled briefly, but then burst out in cold laughter again. "It's probably not, right? Is this very terrible? Is it so?...is it so...it is, it's so terrible."

"This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand."

Something cold had Tony in its grip and he stalked up on Thor, words coming out in a heated rush. "No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this."

"Tony, maybe this might not be the time," Bruce mumbled and Tony rounded on him next.

"Really?! That's it? You just roll over, show your belly, every time somebody snarls."

"Only when I've created a murder-bot," Bruce insisted, tensely.

"We didn't. We weren't even close. Were we close to an interface?"

"Well, you did something right," Steve broke in. "And you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different than SHIELD."

Natasha felt the little chill she still felt at that name, the situations eerily similar – one man taking it into his hands to mold the world to his liking. Whether in the name of peace or power, it amounted to the same thing – innocent people in danger.

"Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?" Tony asked the room.

"No, it's never come up," Rhodey muttered sarcastically to himself.

"- Saved New York?" he continued. "Recall that? A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing 300 feet below it. We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the live long day, but...that up there? That's...that's the end game."

And suddenly Natasha realized where she had seen that look on Tony before. A Stark Tower elevator, crumpled on the floor in the middle of the night, and right in that moment she understood.

Tony was having a panic attack.

It didn't look like a normal attack – no hyperventilating, or fetal position, but it was one all the same. He'd been having one since Sokovia. His body language when he looked at the scepter had been so telling, but he'd laughed and suggested a party and so no one had noticed the fear that so overflowed him it should be puddling on the floor. And this Ultron...thing, was the result.

"How were you guys planning on beating that?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders as if they'd already been beaten.

Steve flicked his eyes up from the ground and met Tony's eyes and Natasha realized she wasn't the only one who had seen the light-struck deer hiding behind Tony's flashy vest and wild hand gestures. Steve was calm and gentle and pierced by his steadying gaze, the terrified man deflated, just a little bit.

"Together," Steve assured him, a chastisement and a promise.

Tony took a step forward. "We'll lose."

"Then we'll do that together, too."

 **XXX**

Despite only having a few hours left in it, the night was a long, tense one.

Maria immediately went to SI HQ and started digging up what she could. Everyone scurried off to take showers and change, filing back into the lab one-by-one and silently beginning to dive into research. Everyone except Clint, that is, who spent the next two hours deep in a phone conversation with Laura. Luckily no one seemed to notice his absence.

Just as the sun began to rise Steve got a text from Maria – she was on her way back to the tower to drop off some intel – and he popped right into the elevator to meet her when she arrived.

The news wasn't good and Maria didn't stay long to deliver it – Strucker was dead and Ultron had killed him. To make matters worse the Creepy Twins from Sokovia seemed to be doing Ultron's dirty business, hitting up the Research and Development capitals of the world and taking everything they could get their hands on.

Clint wafted back in behind Steve just as they realized they were going to have to take this research old school.

Piles of paper and file boxes soon lined one of the conference rooms, as they poured over everything non-digital they could get their hands on. The trail led back to a small African country called Wakanda and if the look between Steve and Tony said anything – it was not going to be a pleasant trail to follow.

 **XXX**

When they landed in the grass, just outside the shipping port they were all suited up and filled with pre-battle rush. Bruce looked nervous, unsure if it would be a Code Green again, but her reassurances that it would be fine either way calmed him a little. Sokovia had been a surprise and it had still gone well. If the Big Guy was needed here, it would go well again.

She gave his hand one last squeeze and they slipped out of the jet, leaving Bruce to close the bay door behind them.

Tony grabbed Clint, Thor grabbed Nat and Steve hit the ground running. They were at the ship in no time. Clint and Nat each took a different side, slipping silently through the hull of the ship in a flanking maneuver.

Tony, Steve, and Thor decided to face things a little more head-on.

If any of them was still entertaining the hope that Ultron could be talked out of his twisted mission, it was quickly dashed when his shiny new metal mouth quipped "I'm glad you asked that, because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan," and charged at Tony.

The battle was quick and dirty. Natasha sprung into action, quickly dispatching several of Klaue's henchmen, tracking the movements of her teammates through sound alone as she pushed along the cramped underbelly of the ancient ship.

She heard Tony and Ultron blast out oft the hull and away from the rest of the team, leaving the four of them to tear through his legionnaire reinforcements and restrain the twins. Thor and Steve smashed through android after android and then, suddenly, it was too quiet.

Natasha twisted down a hallway and stepped out onto the catwalk, scanning for her friends. There was a blue flash next to her and she barely had time to register that the speedy Maximoff must have moved near her when she felt a red-hot, presence in her mind. It flowed through her veins and slowly the world hushed away like someone was pulling down a dimmer switch.

She turned and grabbed the banister and staggered down the stairs towards the...dance studio.

... _ _passé__... _ _elevé__...fourth position, AGAIN. And so they began again. Their ankles shook, arms screamed and over and over they stepped up... _ _boureé__ , AGAIN.

"You'll break them," she said, but in English. That wasn't right. And this suit she was wearing was...wrong. This wasn't how it happened.

"Only the breakable ones." Madame B spoke with a smile in her voice. She liked it when they broke. That meant it was working.

Natasha did not break, would not break. Her body always did what she asked of it, even when her toes were twisted and bleeding in her pointe shoes and her muscles begged for release, she asked again and up she stepped, again.

If she broke, she died. If she failed, she died.

If she succeeded...someone else died.

"What if I fail?" She needed to hear it spoken out loud. If you break, you die. If you fail, you die.

If you succeed, you...graduate.

"You never fail."

 _ _Balancé__...second, AGAIN!

"Sloppy," Madame said, as she failed.

You fail, you die. She waited for the hands to return to her neck, to snap her into blissful darkness, but they did not. "Pretending to fail. The ceremony is necessary for you to take your place in the world."

"I have no place in the world."

"Exactly." And it was true.

The little girls that lined the hallways had no mouths yet someone was screaming. Was it...her? The gurney shook as it careened along. It needn't go so fast...this wasn't how it happened.

A stabbing in her arm.

 _ _Arabesque...boureé,__ AGAIN.

Stabbing pain everywhere. Someone was still screaming...it had to be her...screaming her name...why was she screaming her own name?

"Natasha!" Clint's grip on her arm tightened and she shot back into reality. Everything was tinged with red and the tiny muscles in her hands and legs twitched as the steps of the dance routine repeated through her head – too ingrained to forget.

Without waiting for her to respond, Clint pulled her into his arms and staggered back to the jet. He placed her gently on a chair and immediately disappeared again. She barely had time to register the lack of Bruce's presence before she felt herself sucked back into the Red Room.

She wasn't sure how long she drifted in and out of the present, but the amount of time she was in seemed to get longer and more stable. Another Avenger seemed to appear every time she jerked back into the jet – first Steve, then Clint and Thor, finally Tony, carrying a shirtless and battered Bruce.

He did not look at her, or speak to anyone.

The jet flew on in silence. Mumblings behind her at one point sounded like Maria Hill, but she drifted out without hearing what was said. The flight was long and one-by-one they regained full control of themselves. Thor and Steve getting there first, shaking themselves and pacing around the jet. Steve eventually picked up a terminal and started typing furiously – looking into who-knows-what just to __do something__.

Bruce remained broken and shaking on the floor, a thin blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders. And Natasha desperately wanted to reach out to him, but when she raised her hand there was a gun in it and Madame smiling behind her.

"Fire." The cool voice made her jump, but when she looked around, all was still quiet. Tony had slipped off into sleep and Clint was hunched over the console.

The gun was gone, her hand was empty.

It took her an embarrassingly long time to realize that the fields glowing through the cockpit meant they were heading for the farm. It was made her heart sing, and weep – there was nowhere she would rather be than wrapped in the warmth of Clint's family, but the fear of evil following them here was almost too much to bear.

Clint knew how risky it was, but he was taking them here anyway.

She turned in her seat and the noise made him look up. She caught his eye and they just looked at each other for a long moment. He wouldn't ask what she had seen, he knew there were so many horrible things to chose from in her life.

She thought he probably would guess something else, maybe Beirut, the second time, or the thing in Hong Kong. Those would be perfect nightmares for anyone else, there had even been times in her life when drifting into those moments would shock her awake, sweaty and shaking.

But the witch had slithered into her mind and chosen the Red Room, chosen the ceremony. Her eyes flicked to Bruce's shivering form on the floor. Perhaps for a reason.

The two of them were different from the others. They were isolated. The rest of the team had been created to try and help, to try and fix an evil in the world. Whether a global evil, or a personal evil, they were men made stronger by righteous purpose.

Bruce was striving for that, but he had failed and what remained were the shreds of a good man, bent and twisted from years of caging a wild animal.

And she, she was a machine. Designed and built to kill in the name of power and control. She was no different from Ultron and her dream had been chosen carefully to show her just that.

It didn't matter that she knew that, it didn't make the voices go away.

 _"_ _ _I have no place with these heroes."__

 _"_ _ _I have no place on this team."__

 _"_ _ _I have no place in the world."__

 _"_ _ _Exactly."__

 **XXX**

Natasha tried to focus on the sounds of Bruce shaving on the other side of the bathroom door, pulling her mind away from straps and scalpels and pointe shoes.

She sat, perched uncertainly on the edge of the guest bed, nearly rising to her feet more than once to make for the hallway. When the bathroom door finally did creak open and Bruce's eyes flicked up from the floor to meet hers it was with surprise. She tried to smile confidently at him, but felt it come out weak and uncertain.

"Oh. I didn't realize you were waiting." He hesitated in the doorway, trying to gauge her intentions. His eyes stuttered over to the wardrobe against the wall that she had mentioned earlier she kept clothes and things in for her rather frequent unexpected trips to the farm. His look was verging on questioning: are you here for that, or because of me?

She couldn't help but clarify. "I would've joined you, but uh, it didn't seem like the right time."

"They used up all the hot water." Bruce almost smiled.

"I should've joined you." She smiled wryly.

"Missed our window."

His words came out like a joke, but it felt like a punch to her chest and she couldn't help but ask, "Did we?"

Bruce's face fell and he clutched his towel to his chest self-consciously. "The world just saw the Hulk, the real Hulk, for the first time." He paused, pulling his shirt over his shoulders, but leaving it unbuttoned. "You know I have to leave."

"But you assume that I have to stay?" The words slipped out before Natasha could hold them back. She just wanted to be free. Bruce just gave her a pained look and she tried to put her feelings into words he could understand. "I had this, um, dream. The kind that seems normal at the time...but when you wake..."

He hung on her words, eyes glued to her mouth and his question tumbled forth as he stepped towards her. "What did you dream?"

"That I was an Avenger. That I was anything more than the assassin they made me."

Suddenly he was standing only a foot away from her. "I think you're being hard on yourself," he said softly.

It was too much. With a flick of a switch, his gentleness became too much to bear, too foreign for her. All her life her relationships had been characterized by violence, strength and power and here was this soft man, with the raging creature trapped inside, offering her kindness. She wanted to wipe the pity off his face and replace it with something she could understand.

Without thinking about it she made a desperate bid for calling lust into those brown eyes. She pressed her body forward, closing the gap between them, feeling the warmth of his body, the moisture from his shower-damp skin settling on her cheeks and eyelashes. His breath caught and her voice slid into sultry, a smile playing across her lips. "Here I was, hoping that was your job."

She got what she wanted, if not in the way she intended. The pity was brushed away, but instead of desire all she saw was pain. His words were choked out, barely a whisper as he shook his head. "What are you doing?"

"I'm running with it." Her hand came up to press against the side of his face, soft and freshly shaven and his fingers followed after, closing over hers. "With you. If running's a plan, as far as you want." Her smile was more honest now, open, hopeful.

His eyes flickered briefly to their hands clasped together and her heart skittered in her chest. And then a mere second later it screeched to a halt. His face twisted and caught, his eyes slipping away from her and down to the floor. She saw the ghost of green behind the brown and knew he would push her away before the words even left his mouth. "Are you out of your mind?" he coughed out, pulling his body heat away as he stalked to the other side of the room.

She knew she'd done this wrong, pushed the wrong way. It wasn't about sex, she just wanted to be beside him. She could keep his eyes brown and he...he could keep her ledger out of the red, she was sure of it.

Nat was afraid, so goddamn afraid. Afraid of what would happen if she stayed, of what would happen to him if he went. She just had to explain it. "I want you to understand that I'm-"

"Natasha." She stopped and swallowed, afraid of his tone. "Where can I go? Where in the world am I not a threat?"

She'd heard that voice from him before, once before. On the helicarrier, three years ago. While he told them all how he tried to kill himself. She had a feeling that he knew better than to try a gun this time. It chilled her bones to think that of all the things he and Tony had been developing to keep him under control, maybe there had been one more, one thing they'd hadn't told the team about. A more permanent solution.

But it was different now, he was different now, they were different now. Why didn't he understand how much it meant that she could call him back? If anything this mental __twisting__ proved that the Hulk was an ally they could trust. A monster fueled by nothing but rage? That's what the world had just seen. But over the last few months she had seen something different, a fighter, a protector.

A hero.

That was the real Hulk.

Fear seeped into her voice and she took an aborted step forward "You're not a threat to me!" Anything to ground him here, keep him connected to something...to her.

"You sure?" And suddenly he did sound threatening. His eyes cold and angry. She flashed back to the fury she'd faced down only minutes later on that same day three years ago, watching him change for the first time, seeing the last of Bruce slip away into burning rage. "Even if I didn't just...there's no future with me. I can't ever..." He glanced around, his eyes taking in the pile of kid's toys in the corner of the room, the picture Lila drew last time she was here – Auntie Nat and herself standing side by side, holding hands. "I can't have this, kids, do the math, I physically can't."

All he could see was the things that had been taken away from him by one accident. He kept pushing her away, showing her what a sacrifice it was to care for someone so broken, and he had no idea how broken she was too. She tried and failed to keep the waver out of her voice. "Neither can I."

He just stared, so she continued. "In the Red Room, where I was trained, where I was raised, um, they have a graduation ceremony." She swallowed and pulled her eyes away from his, taking a breath and steeling herself, willing the tears that stung the backs of her eyes to hold off. "They sterilize you. It's efficient. One less thing to worry about. The one thing that might matter more than a mission. Makes everything easier. Even killing." Bruce leaned forward as if to move, but stopped himself and her voice caught.

This man had made a sacrifice trying to build something good. One mistake and he'd lost everything. He was still a good man, a good man with a curse. And she? What was she? A robot. A construction. The scalpel that had cut into her hadn't just warped her body, it had warped her mind. They had pressed a gun into her hand and molded her into a heartless killing machine, ripping and tearing until there was nothing left she had to give. She had nothing good to give. What they could not steal with knives they scraped away with emotional torture. She couldn't give love, freedom, happiness, or life. All she could do was take – as they had taken from her. Her voice shook as she met his eyes and saw that he understood, that he had seen into her in that moment. "You still think you're the only monster on the team?" she asked.

He was quiet for a long moment, barely able to reach her eyes as he processed what he had heard. Finally, he spoke, "What, so we disappear?" His voice was so lost, so resigned to pain that she was struck speechless, caught in the lines around his eyes that hadn't been there when she'd pulled him out of relative peace in India and asked him to rip himself apart over and over again, to save the world.

Natasha was saved answering by the sounds of an argument wafting up from outside the window, the harsh noises drawing them both out of the tense moment they had caught up in. There was a muffled thump from outside the window followed by Steve and Tony's raised voices, the actual words rendered incomprehensible by the thick glass.

"You know why they fight?" Natasha offered, her voice gathering strength.

Bruce let out a little sigh and scuffed at the worn hardwood floor with his bare toe. "Why?"

"Because they desperately want to trust each other, but they know they can't."

Bruce sighed again and squinted his eyes shut. "Yeah," he almost whispered.

"I trust you," Natasha stated.

"You trust me?" Bruce spat out, some of his earlier anger slipping through again. "I rip apart whole towns, kill people, smash cities, totally indiscriminately and without mercy. How can you not be scared of that?"

She scoffed a humorless little laugh. "Of course I'm scared." Her voice was clear and honest, the waver pushed aside by the indignation he brought out in her.

"What?" He looked horrified.

"The Big Guy is fucking terrifying. I'm scared to death every single time I reach out my hand."

He just stared at her for a moment, stunned. "Then why do you do it?"

"Because being scared isn't a good enough reason not to!" Her voice finally raised above normal speaking level, stepping closer and pinching her eyebrows together. She met his gaze, daring him to look away. "Because someone has to." And they both knew she wasn't just talking about the lullaby.

"But now you want to run," he reminded her softly, relaxing his posture and letting her into his space again, the held breath between them released once more.

"With you," she whispered, her finger coming up to lightly touch the edge of his shirt before retreating again to her side.

They were silent for another long moment and then Bruce smiled, just a little smile, but it was there. "I thought you weren't afraid of anything?" It seemed so long ago that he'd last spoken those words, together in the dark, at the tower. Their old nightmares were nothing to what they were facing now.

She smiled back. "I lied."

 **XXX**

Natasha found herself getting to spend time with Laura and the kids after she left Bruce alone to think. It was amazing to see her so far along – Nat could barely believe it had been nearly seven months since Lila had let it spill on the phone. She couldn't help but ghost her fingers over the swell of her belly every chance she got and Lor seemed to understand, smiling sweetly, but a little sadly, every time she did.

Laura in her infinite wisdom kept everyone busy (and separate) for the rest of the afternoon through gentle requests and subtle hints. Tony worked on the tractor in the barn, Fury wafted in, earning a few raised eyebrows, but no comments, and typed furiously on a laptop tucked into a corner of Laura's desk. Nat wasn't sure what Steve was up to, but he came in just before dinner time looking sweaty and a little more relaxed so Laura had probably had him ripping trees out by their roots, or building a new barn all by himself, or something equally Captain America-worthy.

Bruce and Clint could be heard chatting and working on something, out on the back porch. She wasn't sure on what, but knowing Clint it was some home reno he'd half finished last time he was home.

Nat spent most of the day with the kids, helping Cooper with his homework and watching cartoons. When the sun started to go down she stepped into the kitchen and helped Laura start dinner. They all migrated to the table one-by-one and somehow the tension from earlier had dissipated. By unspoken agreement the team didn't discuss the issues at hand while they ate, instead listening to stories from the kids and tentatively telling some gentler ones of their own.

"Okay, okay," Natasha waved her fork around, summoning attention back as laughter rippled around the table following Tony's somewhat fantastical recounting of his 'last ever birthday party'. "That's not how it went down and you know it." She gave him a stern look, but he just smirked. "Fine, how about this: weirdest skill you ever had to learn for a mission." Her eyes met Clint's in challenge, but it was Fury who spoke up first.

"I can play the violin, and draw a perfect freehand circle," he volunteered.

The table chuckled. "I can give a poodle a lion cut." Clint smirked at Nat.

"That's a lie." She glared back, looking for tells.

"Bring me a poodle and I'll prove it." He spread his hands wide in challenge and Nat couldn't resist a smile.

Cooper piped up. "Auntie Nat can hit the big knot on the side of the barn with a knife all the way from the back porch."

There was silence for a beat as all eyes turned to Clint. "You showed him that?"

Nat at least had the decency to flush a little. "Just once. And I made him promise never to try himself."

Clint glared, but Laura giggled, a hand smacking up the cover her mouth and muffle her mirth.

"I can knit," Steve spoke up and all eyes turned to him instead. "Don't ask."

That sent a real laugh rippling around the table and Clint shook his head, giving Nat a look of affectionate exasperation – one she was used to getting – and she winked back.

It wasn't until the dishes were emptied and the kids were coloring in the living room with Laura that talk turned professional once more.

Fury looked up from the glass he was filling at the sink and spoke up. "Ultron took you folks out of play to buy himself time. My contacts all say he's building something. The amount of Vibranium he made off with, I don't think it's just one thing."

Lila appeared at Natasha's elbow and handed her a picture, grinning, unaware of the seriousness of their conversation. Nat couldn't help but smile back, cupping her adopted niece's cheek and whispering thanks. The picture was a butterfly, picked out in orange and surrounded by a blue sky. She'd used the watercolors Natasha had brought her as a gift last year.

"What about Ultron himself?" Steve asked.

"Ah. He's easy to track, he's everywhere. Guy's multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit. Still doesn't help us get an angle on any of his plans though."

Tony spoke up from where he was tossing darts at the board. "He still going after launch codes?"

"Yes, he is, but he's not making any headway."

"I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school on a dare," Tony retorted, knowing that if he could do it, his creation shouldn't be having so much trouble.

"Yeah, well, I contacted our friends at the NEXUS about that."

"NEXUS?" Steve interjected.

"It's the world internet hub in Oslo, every byte of data flows through there, fastest access on earth," Bruce volunteered.

"So what'd they say?" Clint was apparently putting on a pot of coffee, but Nat caught the glint of metal in his hand and the glint of mischief in his eye.

"He's fixated on the missiles. But the codes are constantly being changed," Fury supplied.

"By whom?" Tony asked, stepping forward, then jumping back as a dart flew straight out of Clint's hand and embedded itself smack in the centre of the dartboard next to his head. He shot Clint a look and only got a shrug and a smile in return.

Fury ignored them. "Parties unknown."

"We have an ally?" Nat asked.

"Ultron's got an enemy. That's not the same thing. Still, I'd pay folding money to know who it is."

"I might need to visit Oslo. Find our 'unknown.'" Tony leaned against the doorway thoughtfully.

Nat could feel her frustration building. This wasn't intel, they weren't getting anywhere. Tony was going to up and chase after some mysterious benefactor, and what would the rest of them do? "Well, this is good times, boss, but I was kind of hoping when I saw you, you'd have more than that."

"I do," Fury proclaimed and Natasha raised an eyebrow at him. "I have you. Back in the day, I had eyes everywhere, ears everywhere else. You kids had all the tech you could dream of. Here we all are, back on earth, with nothing but our wit, and our will to save the world. Ultron says the Avengers are the only thing between him and his mission. And whether or not he admits it, his mission is global destruction. All this, laid in a grave. So stand. Outwit the platinum bastard."

Nat caught Steve's eye from across the room and gave him a serious look. "Steve doesn't like that kind of talk."

He smiled back at her. "You know what, Romanoff?" Nat grinned, warmed to see their friendship was still intact after all this.

"So what does he want?" Fury asked the room.

"To become better. Better than us. He keeps building bodies," Steve supplied.

Tony continued his thought. "Person bodies. The human form is inefficient, biologically speaking, we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it."

Nat felt movement behind her as Bruce stepped away from the wall and leaned into her space. She glanced at him, but his hand reached out for the picture still lying next to her arm, his attention fixated fully on the child's drawing. Nat sighed. "When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed."

Bruce suddenly spoke up, his eyes still locked on the butterfly drawing. "They don't need to be protected. They need to evolve. Ultron's going to evolve."

"How?" Fury asked and Nat felt Bruce tense next to her as he came to a realization.

"Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?"

A chill settled over the room. Bruce pulled out his phone and dialed her number, but it went straight to voicemail. He tried the lab next and got a receptionist. He left a message for Cho, but when he hung up he looked concerned.

"Something didn't sound right. She wouldn't tell me where Helen was or when she'd be back in the office. It was...tense."

They all looked at each other uneasily and a plan was quickly formed. They would get a few hours sleep, make sure they were all safe to fly and safe to fight, if need be. In the early morning they'd divide up, sending Tony to Oslo and a team with Steve out to check on Helen Cho. Bruce would go back to the tower and dive back into research.

They all squirmed briefly, uncomfortable, before Laura felt the tension and bustled in, sending Clint upstairs to put the kids to bed and asking Tony to help her make up the guest rooms. Natasha focused on clearing the rest of the table and tucking dishes into the dishwasher, not noticing as the rest of the team slipped away.

She sensed a presence at her arm and looked up into Laura Barton's kind eyes. "You okay, Sweetie?"

"It's-" Natasha started, but she didn't know what to say. "Not really."

Laura just reached out and gently rubbed her arm. The kind gesture chased away a little of the tension and Natasha pulled in an easier breath.

"Soo..." Laura coughed a little, suddenly exuding awkwardness.

"What?" Natasha asked, suspicious.

"I, uh, well Cooper is sleeping in Lila's room, Steve and Tony have already crashed in Cooper's bunk beds." Natasha stifled a giggle – she'd pay to see that. She'd pay even more for a picture safely stored on her phone for future use. "Fury's been sleeping in the basement suite, which means we just have the guest room and..." Laura gestured to the couch. "You and Bruce..." she trailed off questioningly. "I mean, where should I put him?"

Natasha hesitated only for a moment before making her decision. "Put him upstairs. I'll, uhh, I'll sort it out, or I'll stay down here. It's, um, it's complicated..."

"Yeah, I could tell." Laura bumped her arm kindly. "You know you can always bunk up with me and we'll make Clint sleep on the floor." She winked and Natasha laughed.

"He'll never let me live it down if he got a kink in his old man back." Laura smiled again, patting her tummy absentmindedly. She hugged Nat goodnight and then walked over to where Bruce stood by the window to walk with him up to the guest room.

Natasha tucked away the last of the dishes and took a deep breath. As soon as she heard the door to Laura and Clint's master bedroom close she made her way upstairs to the guest room and rapped lightly on the door.

Bruce's "come in" came almost immediately and she pushed the door open.

Bruce managed to look both pleased and horrified to see her there and he startled up from where he had been sitting on the edge of the bed. His eyes locked on the floor and he opened his mouth to say something, but Natasha pressed ever so slightly into his space and spoke first.

"Hey." She touched his arm gently. "Just look at me." His eyes slowly came up to meet hers. "I know this isn't easy, for either of us. I mean I've been trying to figure out what I want for a long time now and the only thing I seem to be pretty sure about is you." He opened his mouth to protest, but she held up a hand to stop him. "I know it's messy and it's complicated and it's painful and I'm not asking for a promise or a plan or anything that unthinkable.

"I won't force you to do anything you don't want to do..." She paused for a second, letting her free hand fall gently against his chest. "But I'm scared." Her voice was almost a whisper now. "And if you just want to be here with me, tonight...I would feel a lot better. I know you think you don't deserve a tomorrow, but after the year we've had, I think we deserve tonight, don't you?"

It wasn't about sex – honestly she wasn't even sure if he could, or if the fear of changing would be too much – she was just suddenly sick of all the flirting and the joking and the skirting around each other. Never before had she suffered from feeling lonely, but now it weighed on her like her shoulders were laden with every good man she'd killed. Every time she closed her eyes she was in the Red Room again – unless she could feel him there beside her – and the thought of lying awake all night, cold and alone with her thoughts, was a painful one.

"Natasha..." His voice was a strangled mix of longing and pain and fear and desperation. He slowly tipped his forehead forward until it was resting against hers.

"I don't think I can face these nightmares alone right now..." She stepped forward ducking under his chin and pressing her face against his chest, balling both fists in his shirt. He smelled like a funny mix of Bruce and shower and Clint's t-shirt. The relief she felt when he didn't push her away, but instead wrapped both arms around her was so strong it felt like a drug coursing through her veins. She'd had crying twisted out of her a long time ago, but her throat felt tight and her eyes were hot for the second time today. "But just say the word and I'll go back downstairs, no hard feelings. I just had to give this one last chance..."

She stepped back towards the bed, sliding her hands down to hold his. She kept her grip light, letting him know he could drop them if he wanted, and she would go.

He didn't.

"So can I stay with you tonight?" she asked softly. Wanting to make her intentions clear she added with a smile, "I just want to hold your hand."

She could see he was still in pain, he was still at war with himself and he still knew there was nothing he had to look forward to when the sun came up, but the thought of letting go of her hands and sending her walking out that door was too much to bear right now.

"Yeah," he whispered and they tipped down, side-by-side, hands still clasped tightly together.

 **XXX**

She woke up only a few hours later in a tangle of limbs and blankets. The sun was still far from coming up and the house was quiet. It would be time to leave too soon though. Bruce's arm was wrapped tight around her shoulders and her head lay gently on his chest, one leg thrown wildly over his, her fingers woven through those of his other hand. Sleep and the dark had robbed them of their inhibitions, drawing them against each other, clinging on for dear life.

Bruce's chest was still moving up and down easily and Natasha was torn between waking him and staying like this. She wanted to see his eyes, wanted to feel him squeeze her hand, but all too soon they would be forced to part. All that time they had spent alone at the tower, just a hallway between them, and she'd been so busy trying to figure out her truth she hadn't acted on the one thing she was sure about. Maybe if she'd listened to Fury last year and gotten her shit together they would have had time to build something that could withstand this onslaught.

Now, maybe this would be all they got.

Not able to stand being alone with her thoughts any longer she gave his hand a squeeze, then propped herself up on her elbow. "Hey, Doc."

"Errgghh," he groaned, trying to pull her back down against his side and throwing his other arm over his eyes. "You know being woken up early makes me angry," he whispered. She couldn't help but smile. "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

"Actually I kinda do," She joked giving him a poke in the side, relieved that he hadn't woken up with regrets, that he still wanted her close. "We're going to have to leave soon." She gently pried his hand up to meet his eyes underneath. He smiled when she came into view.

"Good morning," he said.

"Good morning."

"You okay?" He reached out and brushed his fingers gently against her cheek. She just nodded. "I'm sor-" he started but she placed two fingers over his lips.

"Don't."

"But-"

"Let's just...we might not see each other for a little while. I don't know what we'll find in Korea. For now can we just...leave it at this? We can argue later, back at the gym, where I have something to hit." She smirked. "You're going to be there when I get back, right?"'

He sighed, but nodded. "Yeah."

"Good." She fell back onto the bed with a __foof__ , flat on her back beside him, their fingers lightly meeting in the middle. "You should get up and get ready to go, you know, pack, brush your teeth."

"Oh no, ladies first." He wriggled further down under the blanket.

"I don't mind waiting." She tucked a hand under her pillow and curved onto her side, pressing against him, closing her eyes.

"Maybe, just, like, ten more minutes," he whispered, his breath soft in her hair.

"But we have to go save the world," she reminded him.

"Yeah, okay." He sighed, but didn't move.

"In like, ten minutes," she breathed.

"Thank god."

 **XXX**

20 minutes later Natasha was in the jet with Clint and Steve watching the farm disappear below them. Bruce's hand was just a ghost on hers and the more she thought about them, the worse she felt. She had finally come to a place where she felt like she could trust someone enough to open up her life to them and she just had to pick someone who may never trust himself enough to open up back.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by Clint looking down at her, coughing significantly and raising an eyebrow accusingly.

"What?"

"I think you know what."

"I really don't, Barton."

"You and Banner."

"Oh." She rolled her eyes at him. "You gonna be all jealous and protective, Big Brother?"

He scoffed. "Sounds like I missed my chance to be all jealous and protective. According to some people I've been missing something for a while now. Feels tacky to start now." He switched to a gentler tone, sitting down beside her. "Is it good?"

"I don't know," she sighed. "It could be. It's not anything right now. But maybe it could be. Or could have been. I don't know."

Clint gave her arm a comforting pat and pulled out his bow to give it the once over. That was a nice thing about her best friend, he never said anything if nothing needed saying. He knew how hard this must be for them and he could offer nothing but his support – something she knew she always had.

By the time they reached Seoul Natasha had successfully pushed all thoughts of Bruce from her mind, shifting into the calm, focused mindset that allowed her to do her job so well.

They dropped Cap on a rooftop nearby and took a spin around the area, looking for disturbance. Steve approached the lab on foot, not wanting to set off any defenses Ultron had put into place. Clint and Natasha circled while they listened to Steve on the comms.

What they heard wasn't good. The lab had been blasted apart mere minutes before they arrived. Everyone was gone, Ultron was gone.

"Dr. Cho!" Steve called out suddenly and Natasha held her breath. __Please let her be alright.__

Her voice came through Steve's comm, thready, but alive and breathing.

"He's uploading himself into the body."

"Where?" Steve asked.

"The real power is inside the cradle. The gem. Its power is uncontainable. You can't just blow it up. You have to get the cradle to Stark."

"First I have to find it."

"Go," Cho gasped out.

"Did you guys copy that?" Steve asked, his breathing heavy as he ran. Natasha immediately took to the computer and started researching escape routes.

"We did," Clint replied.

Nat spoke up, reading from the screen. "I got a private jet taking off, across town, no manifest. That could be him."

There was a pause. "There," Clint said confidently. "It's the truck from the lab. Right above you, Cap. On the loop by the bridge." The scanner flickered to life. "It's them. I got three with the cradle, one in the cab. I could take out the driver."

"Negative! If that truck crashes, the gem could level the city. We need to draw out Ultron."

Nat ran to the back of the jet and started prepping her supplies. Clint stayed close to Steve's tail, updating Natasha on the progress as Steve engaged the truck's robot guard.

"Bring me in close, Barton," she called, once she was ready.

"We got a window," he replied. "Four, three...give 'em hell."

Natasha hit the ground hard, the wheels of her motorcycle skidding at the sudden impact. She darted through people and traffic, making her way around to intercept the truck, picking up Cap's lost shield on the way.

Pulling up alongside the truck she tossed Steve his shield and stuck close as he and Ultron duked it out. Unable to get the upper hand Steve kept repelling Ultron over and over, but eventually the android slammed into Steve hard and sent them both crashing into a local train, leaving the truck – and the cradle – undefended.

"I'm going in," she called. "Cap, can you keep him occupied?"

"What do you think I've been doing?"

Diving into the back of the truck, Natasha found herself faced with the cradle – an eerie green glow emanating from it. She started pushing buttons, trying to open it, shut it down, anything. A sudden jerk knocked her on her feet as the truck lifted off the ground.

Clint's voice crackled through the comm. "Okay, package is airborne. I have a clean shot."

"Negative," Natasha gasped out, scrambling for purchase. "I am still in the truck."

"What the hell are you..." Clint started, but she interrupted, a sudden idea coming to mind. It wouldn't be safe, and it wouldn't be fun, but it would get her and the cradle on the Quinjet. Probably.

"Be ready. I'm sending the package to you."

"How do you want me to take it?"

"Uhh, you might wish you hadn't asked that."

Working quickly she cut the straps securing the cradle to the truck bed, slapped a charge on the truck and grabbed the edges of the cradle. The cradle tipped out of the truck and fell through the air towards the Quinjet, pulling her along with it.

The sudden jarring of the edge of the cradle hitting the bay door nearly shook her loose, but she flexed her hands to slip them deeper into the slots as they slid successfully into the bay.

And something grabbed her ankle.

Ripped clean out of the jet before her feet even touched the floor she gasped against the sudden rush of air around her. A flash of metal, the Quinjet and the exploding truck spinning out of view above her. Every time she tried to suck in a breath it was whipped away by the cold torrent of air raging around her. She made a futile grab at the hand wrapped around her ankle, but her muscles were weakening, her vision getting black and fuzzy at the edges.

And finally everything slipped away.

 **XXX**

Natasha came to suddenly to the sound of grinding metal and the whirring of gears. She lifted her head to see Ultron standing by a workbench nearby. His deceptively smooth voice piping up the minute she opened her eyes.

"I was unsure you'd wake up. I hoped you would, I wanted to show you. I don't have anyone else." She pushed herself up on her elbow and looked around. She was on a platform in what looked like a part of the Sokovia base they had infiltrated – the stonework was the same – but it had been modified and expanded. The walls burst out to form a huge circular chamber filled with scaffolds and riggings. Iron Legion – rather Iron Ultron soldiers lined the room, some lifting and carrying, some merely standing guard.

Ultron spoke again. "I think a lot about meteors, the purity of them. 'Boom!', the end, start again. The world made clean for the new man to rebuild. I was meant to be new. I was meant to be beautiful."

Natasha pushed herself up to sit against the stone wall behind her. Her head was still fuzzy and her legs felt wobbly and weak.

"The world would've looked to the sky and seen hope, seen mercy. Instead they'll look up in horror because of you. You've wounded me. I give you full marks for that. But, like the man said, "What doesn't kill me..." Huge metal fingers crushed Ultron's head and Natasha staggered backwards into an enclave behind her until her back hit a wooden crate. Ultron's body ripped apart, wires sparking and snapping as he was reduced to shreds, revealing another Ultron behind him, this one much larger than before. His silky voice dripped out of the new form with barely a pause "...just makes me stronger!"

Nat tried to catch her breath while the new Ultron reached out and grabbed a metal gate. Sliding it closed she found herself trapped within the enclave, just her and a pile of crates and supplies.

If she was fully honest with herself she may be trapped, but she'd rather be trapped in this cell alone, then stuck out there with him.

It took a few hours before Nat was able to move from the floor. The sheer exhaustion threatened to overtake her, but she fought it, knowing she had to do something to communicate with the team. Clint would be going crazy having to leave her behind. Maybe there was some way she could contact him...

She started to explore her cell and dig through the junk and rubble that lined the floor. When she pulled the sheet metal aside and saw a shortwave radio lying on its side in the corner of the cell, she couldn't help but smile.

A small alteration later and she was able to send a morse code message out into the ether. She wouldn't be able to get a response this way, but on certain wavelengths, anyone else who was in the know would re-transmit her message for an hour. Her co-ordinates would go around the world thousands of times over the next several hours and if Clint had any brains in his head, he would pick them up.

Nat lowered herself to the floor, her feet sliding out from under her, bringing her down hard onto the concrete. She ached all over from being ripped out of the Quinjet and whatever other battery she'd withstood being brought here.

It was out there – if Clint was listening, he would find her. And if not, they'd end up here anyway, she was sure of it. Ultron wanted to bring them here and if she didn't make that happen, he'd find another way. At least this way it would be somewhat on their terms.

The stone floor pulled the heat away from her body and before long she was shivering. She grimaced to herself, to survive all this and die of hypothermia would just be embarrassing. She tried to stay in her mind, ignore her body's discomfort and remind herself: they are coming for me.

She couldn't help but let Ultron's speech rattle around in her head. __I was meant to be beautiful__. She knew what they felt like – to have purpose and then have it twisted. To lose sight of what was truth and what was good and what were orders. But for her it had been the other way around.

Ultron was built to do good – Tony and Bruce were trying to build something that could protect people, act as Avengers in their stead.

She was built to destroy. To rob life in order to maintain power. To prevent growth, evolution, chaos.

And yet here they were – she was trying to save the world and Ultron was trying to destroy it.

She always thought she was a monster – the Red Room had given her no choice. Like an alcoholic, she would never be truly free of evil, all she could do was fight it every day. But she was wrong. It wasn't like that. The Red Room had turned her into a tool, a powerful tool, that they had wanted to use for evil, but instead she had made a choice. A choice for good.

And Ultron, built to save the world had also made a choice. A choice for destruction. To purge instead of protect.

Her place on the team wasn't about what power she had been given, but rather about how she chose to use that power. Clint had seen it in her from the first time he met her. He had given her a chance to make a choice when no one else ever had and that had changed everything.

And Bruce.

The aching chasm between them. The reason why he couldn't look her in the eye, why he grimaced after every mission, why a Code Green still terrified him so much.

He had no choice.

Once he changed he was robbed of his free will. All he could do was give in and hope that today would be a day that the Hulk decided to be a tool for good. Natasha would never be able to truly understand that. She may have been brainwashed in the Red Room but it was still always herself, ultimately in control.

And beyond that there was the Hulk too. The Big Guy was a living, acting being. Now more than ever she was firmly convinced that Bruce and the Hulk were two separate entities and he had chosen to aid them, to save her life even. The witch's magic had proved that if he truly only wanted to destroy he was perfectly capable of that, but instead he had let himself be guided by the Avengers purpose and by Bruce's desires.

Over the next several hours she drifted in and out of wakefulness, the cold and hunger starting to sap her of her already diminished strength.

Suddenly a familiar voice broke through the silence. "Natasha! Natasha!"

Natasha sprung to her feet, pressing her face against the grate. "Bruce?"

His worried face appeared around the corner and she let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

"You all right?" he asked, stealing her usual line for him.

And suddenly she was alright, the cold banished and her strength returned. "Yeah."

"The team is in the city. It's about to light up."

She gestured at the locked door. She'd already spent two solid hours trying to pick it, but it was old and rusted and wouldn't budge. "I don't suppose you found a key lying around somewhere."

Bruce stepped back and pulled out a massive energy rifle and pointed it at the lock. "Yeah. I did."

Okay, that was a little hot.

Natasha ducked around the wall, waited until he blasted the lock apart, then slid the gate open, stepping out to face him. "So what's our play?"

Bruce just sighed. "I'm here to get you to safety."

"Job's not finished."

"We could help with the evacuation, but I can't be in a fight near civilians. And you've done plenty. Our fight is over." And there was something about the way he said "our" that made her wonder. It felt like an invitation and one she suddenly knew she couldn't take.

"So, we just disappear?" she asked, sadly.

He sighed and leaned in towards her. "Natasha, I __have__ to leave."

He did, she could see that. The toll that living in the tower was taking on him, the pressure of being part of the Avengers. She'd seen it before and thought it was something they could push past, but there was a reason she had found him wandering around India. His recovery wasn't the same as the rest of the team. He couldn't just collapse in front of the TV in pajama pants and eat candy until he felt normal again. Bruce had to go somewhere where he wasn't the Hulk, where he was no one, where changing seemed almost impossible.

He __had__ to leave. And she __couldn't__. Not now.

The stone foundation rumbled and shook nearly knocking them to their feet.

"We gotta move." Bruce grabbed her hand and made for the door, along the edge of a deep cavern, but she stopped, pulling him around to face her.

Natasha often wondered if time moved more slowly for her than it did for other people. It would explain why she was so good at what she did – so fast, so quick to react. And here now, looking into Bruce's warm, brown eyes, she had plenty of time to think

For all that she cared for him and for all that he had done for the team, it wasn't really Bruce who was her partner in battle. It wasn't Bruce she fought side-by-side with and Bruce wasn't the only one whose choices were regularly ripped away. His other side, the creature trapped inside him was her ally and, in some ways, had even less freedom than the man who caged him. She spent all her time and energy so desperately trying to keep Bruce from changing, trying to bring Bruce back to himself that she discounted the other being she had formed a bond with. She understood the Hulk, she could speak to him. He was more like her than Bruce in many ways.

Bruce had to leave, yes, but the thought of turning tail on this mission, of running away while her friends and teammates fought for their lives and the innocent lives around them, made her blood run cold. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that the Hulk would feel the same way. There was a reason she always spoke to him before the lullaby, told him the mission was over, that he had helped them, saved them, succeeded. It calmed him, opened him up to the possibility of turning the reins back over to Bruce.

So this one time she would act, not for herself, not for Bruce, but for the beast that had somehow chosen her to trust. She asked of him over and over "please give me my Bruce back" and he had sighed, and grumbled, but he had said yes. Every time. She owed him this and if Bruce could never forgive her, she would have to live with that.

"You're not gonna turn green?" she said, almost hopeful, afraid of the choice she was about to make.

Bruce spoke confidently, crowding up against her, gripping her hand tight. "I've got a compelling reason not to lose my cool."

She couldn't help but smile as her heart broke. "I adore you," tumbled out of her mouth before she could pull it back and the look on his face was so utterly __Bruce__ that there was nothing she could do but slip her hand free of his, only to wrap it around his neck and pull him, impulsively, to her in their first, and probably only, kiss.

It was only a heartbeat before Bruce was kissing her back, pressing against her, melting against her mouth. It was intense and perfect and over too soon. Before he could pull back to catch his breath she slid her hands to his chest, steeled herself, and shoved.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine:**

There was a horrible moment while Bruce lost his balance and he looked at her with such fear and surprise that she almost cried out to him. She saw whatever tentative trust they had built between them stretch and snap and he was gone. She took a breath and shifted her mind to the battle raging above them. I adore you, "but I need the other guy."

There was a clanging noise from the bottom of the pit and then the massive Hulk burst out and landed in front of her. Her breath caught for a moment, on edge, watching him, never forgetting that he could kill her in a second. A grin broke across his face, his shoulder dropping into battle-stance in anticipation and she smiled.

"Let's finish the job."

He roared with excitement and reached out towards her. She staggered back, but he swept her up easily with one hand and flung her on his back. She scrambled desperately for a handhold as he galloped joyously towards the exit. As soon as they hit the open air he was off and it was all Natasha could do to cling to his shoulders.

It was not a pleasant ride, but it was efficient. He hit the ground with such force she was thrown from his shoulders and rolled in the dirt before getting her feet under her and rising to a crouch, winded.

She looked up at the giant creature that stood a few feet away and hoped that he understood. If they somehow found a way to save the world and Bruce left, she may never see this form of his again. This was her parting gift. A thank you for keeping her scientist safe and an apology for being the one to lock him up again every time. "I really hope this makes us even." He grinned at her and she couldn't help but smile back. "Now go be a hero."

She turned towards the sound of fighting and started to run. Her comm had cut in as soon as they had landed on the rising city, close enough now to pick up the team signal and she was relieved to hear everyone's voices calling their moves. Hearing Clint's in particular pulled some of the tension from her shoulders. She burst out into a clearing and suddenly faced a mass of Ultron's android soldiers. Steve was visible in the distance throwing his shield over and over.

Ultron's drones weren't strong, but they were many, and they were unrelenting. She pushed them back over and over, finding the weak points where a strike from her baton or a bullet would down them immediately.

Eventually, Steve made his way over to her, shield flying, and together they managed to clear the area. They herded the survivors onto the relative safety of a nearby building, pulling them together and making them easier to defend. Stumbling along the road she suddenly found herself faced with the edge of the excised city and was struck by the sheer magnitude of what they were facing, already miles above the surface of the earth, nothing but clouds stretching out before her. There wasn't much in the way of hope going around.

"What do you got, Stark?" Steve called out over his comm as he ushered the last group of civilians under cover.

"Nothing great." Her heart dropped. Tony Stark out of miraculous ideas was never a good sign. "Maybe a way to blow up the city. That'll keep it from impacting the surface, if you guys can get clear."

Steve's jaw was tight. "I asked for a solution, not an escape plan."

Tony sounded heartbroken and Natasha knew he'd gone over it all every way possible before coming to that decision. "Impact radius is getting bigger every second. We're gonna have to make a choice."

Steve trotted over a pile of rubble to come stand behind her. The empty sky laid out before them. She turned to him, catching his eye. "Cap, these people are going nowhere. If Stark finds a way to blow this rock-"

His eyes snapped back to the horizon. "Not till everyone's safe."

"Everyone up here versus everyone down there? There's no math there."

"I'm not leaving this rock with one civilian on it," he ground out.

Natasha softened. "I didn't say we should leave." She looked out over the expanse of endless clouds. It really was beautiful. "There's worse ways to go. Where else am I gonna get a view like this?"

Suddenly Fury's voice crackled in over their comms. "Glad you like the view, Romanoff. It's about to get better." A familiar whirring filled the air and SHIELD's Helicarrier broke through the clouds, filling the sky in front of them. "Nice, right? Pulled her out of mothballs with a couple of old friends. She's dusty, but she'll do."

Steve grinned. "Fury, you son of a bitch."

"Ooh, you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

Reinvigorated by the appearance of the lifeboats, Steve, Pietro, and Natasha spread out quickly, pulling people out of hiding and herding them towards safety. The buildings emptied as the lifeboats filled and Natasha started feeling a glimmer of hope that they might be able to save these lives after all.

She felt a thrill almost as good as the one from the Helicarrier coming into view when she heard Tony say, "Thor, I've got a plan."

Leaving Rhodey and the agents to fill the boats, she started off for the core, realizing quickly that there was no way she'd get there in time to be any help. Following the stream of people she'd come around the side of the city and put herself as far away as possible while still being in the action. She was just about to call out for someone speedier to come pick her up when a glint of yellow in an upper deck parking garage caught her eye.

The truck tore through the debris in front of her, her foot not coming up off the floor for anything. It powered down the abandoned streets, pushing cars and rubble out of the way with ease, Ultron drones bouncing harmlessly off its hood. The core came into view and she gave it one last gun, bringing down the fence. Hopping out of the cab she took off towards the centre of the action.

Tony, Steve, Clint, and Thor were already there, joined by a new guy with red skin that she was sure she had never seen before and, to her surprise, the Maximoff twins. No one was shooting at them so she assumed they were on her side in this and a quick glance at Clint confirmed it.

Tony turned her way and she called out to him, "What's the drill?"

"This is the drill," he gestured towards the device surging up out of the centre of the platform, "If Ultron gets a hand on the core, we lose."

The Hulk blasted into view and she was pleased to see him still with them and enjoying the fight. He ripped a drone apart with a single punch and shot a victorious look her way.

Ultron's main body appeared out of the settling dust, his red glowing eyes staring down at them. They stepped closer together, forming a stand between him and his target.

"Is that the best you can do?!" Thor hollered, brandishing his hammer. Ultron raised a hand and the androids came, pouring out of the wreckage and swooping in from the air. They gathered silently behind their leader.

Steve sighed and looked over at the Norse god. "You had to ask."

Ultron raised his arms, smiling down at them smugly. "This is the best I can do. This is exactly what I wanted. All of you against all of me. How can you possibly hope to stop me?"

Natasha heard the familiar sound of Tony's repulors warming up. "Well, like the old man said." He tossed a look towards Steve. "Together."

As one they all slid into battle-stance, forming a ring around the core. Hulk roared and the drones took off, swarming towards them in a seemingly endless stream of metal.

Natasha fell immediately into the zen of battle, all other thoughts pushed away as she spun and dove around her opponents. There was nothing but target after target as she unfailingly hit weak point after weak point, dropping their artificial bodies around her.

Soon the ground was littered with fragmented robots, wires and metal plating lay sparking and twisted around them. Ultron could tell they were starting to break the back of his onslaught and he suddenly dove in hard towards the core. The newcomer was the one to engage him, shining a beam of energy from the glowing stone in his forehead.

Whoever he was, he was pretty good.

Together Thor, Tony, and the new guy were able to hold Ultron's strongest body at bay. It was the Hulk who finally charged in, slamming a fist into the robot's broken, molten body and sending it flying, deep into the city. The Hulk roared, turning his attention to his next target which skittered off between two buildings, the green monster in hot pursuit.

Sensing defeat the remaining drones took to the air and Tony, Rhodey and the red guy took off after them leaving Steve, Wanda, Clint, and Natasha standing guard.

"We gotta move out," Steve spoke up. "Even I can tell the air is getting thin. You guys get to the boats. I'll sweep for stragglers. Be right behind you."

"What about the core?" Clint asked.

Wanda spoke up. "I'll protect it." His eyes snapped to hers and something passed between them. "It's my job," she said solemnly and he gave her a little nod.

"Nat? This way," Clint called, catching her eye. She glanced up at the dark-haired twin and back at Clint and he gave her the look: it's okay.

Natasha's truck hadn't survived the collision with the fence so they hopped in the first car that had the keys in the ignition and sped off through the city.

"So who's the red guy with the glowing head?" she asked conversationally.

"Oh yeah, you haven't met the Vision yet, too busy lazing about in Ultron's prison, eh?"

"Yeah," she drawled. "it was better than a spa day. Too bad you couldn't join me."

"Ha! It's a good thing you didn't run into Vision in the field, probably woulda clocked him one. He's an imposing figure." Clint smiled at her as he jumped the curb and tore through several small bushes lining the sidewalk.

Nat shrugged. "Well, he seemed to be on our side. It didn't seem polite to ask."

Clint turned the wheel sharply to the left and the car skidded around a turn, bouncing lightly off of a "No Left Turn" sign which teetered for a moment before tipping over onto the ground.

"I know what I need to do," Clint suddenly spoke up as if reaching an epiphany. "The dining room. If I knock out that east wall, it'd make a nice workspace for Laura, huh? Put up some baffling. She can't hear the kids running around. What do you think?"

"You guys always eat in the kitchen anyway."

"No one eats in a dining room."

The lifeboat came into view and Clint pulled the car to a halt.

He turned to look at her. "We don't have a lot of time."

She could hear the Hulk roaring and grunting behind the remains of an apartment building to their left. This would be the first lullaby under time pressure and she hoped the Big Guy would understand the urgency. She turned back to Clint who was still just sitting there, looking at her. "So get your ass on a boat."

They popped out of the car and she immediately took off towards the sounds of destruction. The Hulk was pacing back and forth in the quad, stopping occasionally to toss a car aside, or tear a streetlamp out of the ground.

"Hey, Big Guy," she called, trying to keep her voice steady and unrushed. "Sun's getting real low."

She pulled off her glove and stepped towards him, holding up her bare palm. He grunted and paced a few more times, but eventually turned towards her. He seemed more conflicted than usual. She could see he was tired, satisfied by the battle, but he was fighting the lullaby, resisting her.

Eventually, he did step forward and slowly lifted his hand, his eyes on her. She breathed a sigh of relief.

Before his fingers could touch hers the dust suddenly kicked up around them and she saw his face shift into rage as those huge fingers tore away from hers. She barely had time to process it before the pain ripped through her calf and she hit the ground.

Wrapping her hand around her leg she pulled herself towards an overturned car nearby, searching for cover. The air was still thick with dust and she coughed, squeezing her eyes shut against the onslaught. Something grabbed at her side and she flailed blindly against it to no avail. She was lifted off the ground hard, the wind suddenly whistling around her face.

Opening her eyes she saw two green ones looking down at her worriedly. Cradled gently in the Hulk's arms his great leap took them in an arc, over the lifeboats and onto the deck of the Helicarrier. He set her down gently on the tarmac, but before she could speak he was off again, bracing his feet and then propelling himself upwards until he landed hard on Ultron's stolen jet.

A moment later a figure was ejected from the jet's bay and flew out of sight, crashing into the still-rising city. She watched as the jet stuttered and then righted before flying in a great arc around the Helicarrier, but it didn't make to land on the strip below, it continued to turn and Natasha felt panic rising in her chest.

All she could think about was finding a way to get to Bruce. If the Hulk went back down to the city to fight, he'd be blown up when Tony and Thor hit the switch. If she could get to him on the jet, maybe she could do the lullaby remotely, or at least get him to come back to the Helicarrier.

She scrambled to her feet wincing when she tried to put weight on her injured leg. As soon as she hit the control room doors several eager agents tried to help her to medical, but she brushed them off, making her way directly to communications. The jet was in stealth mode, but the comm line was open and she made a video connection, taking a deep breath when she saw him appear on the screen in front of her.

"Hey, Big Guy." She smiled softly at him. "We did it. The job is finished. Now I need you to turn this bird around, okay?" She watched as he stepped up to the video screen and reached out a hand towards her, just like their lullaby. Her heart clenched. "We can't track you in stealth mode. So help me out. I need you-"

And the line went dead.

She almost reached out to re-initialize the connection, but stopped before pressing the button. As much as it hurt to admit, she knew he had disconnected the call himself. She watched the monitors as the jet flew passed the city and continuing on before blinking out entirely as the Helicarrier lost visual.

He was making a choice, and that choice was to leave. For once, it seemed, Bruce and the Other Guy were in agreement, they had to go. Away from her.

Panic rose unbidden at the thought that he might be stuck now, that the Hulk might not let Bruce return without her there to bring him home, but she quashed it. He had survived for years, turned plenty of times, before he even met her and he had been fine.

She couldn't expect that in the few short years she had known him that he had come to need her, but her final words to him weighed heavily on her shoulders. He may not need her, but she was starting to wonder just how much she might need him.

 **XXX**

The lifeboats docked with the Helicarrier shortly after the Tony-initiated explosion and the new SHIELD team was busy getting everyone sorted. Natasha pushed through the crowd, scanning for particular faces and could barely breathe with the relief of seeing Clint and Steve helping a group of people into the main lobby. She limped over to them and Clint immediately wrapped himself around her.

"Pietro's gone," he whispered into her ear. "He got shot protecting me."

He buried his face in her neck and she gripped him with both hands, half hugging, half holding each other up. She met Steve's eyes over his shoulder and mouthed "Tony and Thor?"

He nodded and tapped his earpiece – hers had been lost when the Big Guy had pulled her out of the city. "Wanda and Vision are clear too. Vision and Rhodey are doing a last sweep for remaining androids. Tony and Thor got drenched, they've gone to their old rooms." Steve glanced down to her leg. She should have known her uneven gait wouldn't have been missed by the super-soldier. "Have you been to medical?" he asked sternly

Clint pulled back roughly and scanned his eyes over her. "Yes," she lied, knowing the bullet had gone right through and the bleeding had already stopped. Medical would be overwhelmed right now and there wasn't much they could do anyway. She'd check it later and if it needed stitches, she'd do it herself. "I'm fine."

She could tell Clint knew she was lying but he didn't say anything, just gave her another hug, threw a sloppy salute at the Captain and staggered off towards his room.

When the turmoil had died down Nat found herself unbelievably hungry. The last time she'd eaten was the dinner at the Barton farm which felt like a hundred years ago.

Ten minutes later found Natasha in the canteen devouring a plate without even realizing what she was eating, her mind elsewhere. Steve sat down heavily beside her and she followed his gaze across the canteen to the crumpled girl, alone in the corner. She wasn't crying, but her eyes were glazed and blank, looking right through the bowl of soup someone had placed in front of her. Natasha couldn't help wondering what it meant to be half of a twin, to be ripped down the middle and left permanently divided.

"She's lost everything." Steve sighed.

"Yes, she has." Nat hesitated. "But she's gained something too."

Steve met her eyes for a moment and then nodded. Pulling shakily to his feet he made his way across the room to crouch in front of the girl, one hand resting gently on her knee. She tipped her head up and he spoke. Wanda nodded and then, to Natasha's great surprise, smiled. It wasn't a big smile, and it wasn't without pain, but it reached her eyes and pushed some of the deathly pallor from her skin.

The earnestness and honesty that had earned Steve his role here in the first place still blew Natasha away sometimes and clearly she wasn't the only one. There wasn't anything to say here, and yet he had found the right thing to say.

That man was unbelievable.

"I know, right? If only I weren't married." Clint's mocking voice came from behind her. She smiled, realizing she'd muttered her last thought out loud to herself, and turned to her friend. Her eyes immediately flicked to the duffle he had slung over his shoulder. Though he didn't meet her gaze, he knew what she had seen. "Yeah, I've gotta go home. Fury says I can take one of the recon jets and he'll send someone to pick it up later."

She nodded. "Of course you should. Laura needs to know you're okay."

"Come with me?" It was an offer he'd made so many times, in so many ways. He always, always took her with him. Reached out a hand and dragged her along, out of despair, out of loss, out of pools of her own blood and out of rooms filled with bodies.

Come with me. It would be easy, it would be safe. Laura wouldn't ask her anything she wouldn't want to answer. The kids would be happy to see her, maybe she'd get to see Nathaniel be born, hold his tiny body in her killer's hands and help usher life into the world instead of taking it out.

But it wasn't right. His voice wasn't the one she wanted to hear say those words and the quiet and solitude of the farm was not what she needed right now. She needed goals and order and rules. She needed to be where Bruce could find her if he wanted to.

"Nah, I think I have something I have to do here." Her eyes were back on her friend and the broken girl, now sitting side by side. Wanda was explaining something to Steve, moving her hands as she talked, a little of the pinching around her young eyes smoothed away.

Clint just nodded, bent down to kiss the top of her head, then turned and walked away.

 **XXX**

Once everyone was settled and Fury's team had taken over with the authorities the Avengers quietly slipped away and piled into one of the jets to head back to the tower. Wanda had initially been surprised when they had expected her to join them, but once she realized they meant to keep her on the team she was clearly pleased.

They set her up in a suite and Steve took it upon himself to help her settle in, introducing her to New York the way he had been introduced to the 21st century.

A week after their return Natasha found herself looking for someone to share a beer with so she pulled out her phone and texted Tony. It was weird getting used to not having JARVIS at the tower letting you know where everyone was at all times. Tony had uploaded FRIDAY into his own suits, cars, and everyone's phones, but not into the tower systems itself. Nat wasn't sure why and it somehow didn't seem like her place to ask.

She'd talked to Clint a few times and it had become clear that he wasn't planning on returning to active duty any time soon. It was good, it made her happy, but it was going to be hard doing this without her best friend at her side. Luckily she was no longer a one-friend girl; it turned out spending time with the others could make her nearly as happy.

Roof was the only reply she got from Tony and she grabbed two beers and an elevator to the hanger floor.

Tony had pried open one of the windows next to the Quinjet Bay and regularly climbed out on the catwalk. Say what you will, that man had zero fear of heights. Natasha leaned down and stepped out into the cool air, sliding down to sit next to him, legs tucked around the metal bars, feet dangling out over infinity.

"You okay?" she asked without inflection, looking out over the skyline instead of at him.

"Yeah." He sighed, leaning back on his hands. "I just talked to Steve."

"Oh?"

"I can't be...here anymore. I can't eat, sleep and breathe the Avengers. I'm not in the right, uhh, mindset, to save the world. Ultron made that clear enough. I need some distance, I guess. I still have the armour, I mean you guys can call me in if you need me, but.." He trailed off and just gestured vaguely.

"So, are you kicking us out, or moving away?" Nat asked, flashing him a small smile.

"Kicking you out," he said matter-of-factly, but then he reached beside him and handed her a tablet with a folder of images open on the screen. "But I got you guys a going away present."

Natasha flipped through the images. An old Stark Industries compound upstate, mostly empty storage buildings and factory floors, lastly blueprints. A design for a new Avengers facility, Quinjet bays, training facilities, R&D. It was amazing.

"It's completely separate from SI now. I've set up trusts and whatnot," he waved his hand again, dismissively. "Avengers have their own bankroll and accountants and I don't know, stationery."

"I'd like a mug."

"Yeah, okay, good one. FRIDAY, add Avengers Logo mugs to the list."

"Sure thing, Boss." Her chipper accent came out of the tablet.

Nat ran her finger along the edge of the screen. "How do we know, though?"

"Know what?"

"How do we know it's different? We keep weaponizing people in the name of peace. That girl downstairs wouldn't be half of a set if Strucker hadn't tried to weaponize people. I was churned out of a factory for assassins. A lot of people have died at the hands of tools of peace. Ultron was supposed to be a tool of peace. How do we know we're doing it right?"

"We don't. We really just don't." Tony sighed. "So, we just do our best to give it a chance, to make it good. Use our advantage."

"What's our advantage?"

He glanced at her as if the answer was obvious. "We've got Steve in charge." Tony took the tablet back and looked at the plans for a moment. "If I throw obscene amounts of money at it, it should be ready in about six months, maybe eight. I'll stick around, you know, until then, but...it's time."

Nat gently leaned into him until their shoulders bumped together and shot him a smile when he looked up at her. "I get it. I've been there too, I know what it's like. You have to go, Stark, you've done enough. If you get tired of it, of being..." she chuckled a little, "normal, there will always be a place for you on the team."

He laughed properly at that. "Yeah, don't worry, I would never dare become normal. First thing's first, I owe Pepper like a month in Italy, or France or something. Somewhere with beaches and lots of expensive things."

"It'll be good for you too."

"Yeah I guess. I haven't really slept well since...19...82...maybe there was a good night in '83, but definitely not since then."

Nat chuckled. "Go get your sleep on the coast of France."

"Thanks. What about you? Sounds like you're staying, then? Not running off after your beau?" He tugged a little on the green charm that hung off her wrist.

"If he wants me, he knows where to find me," she said, not unkindly. "He needs this. I understand. Maybe...maybe someday..." she trailed off.

"If you asked me to, I would find him for you," Tony said earnestly.

"I know, but if he wanted to be found, he would let us know. I hunted him down once before and look where it got him. If he comes back, it has to be his choice this time."

"Alright, I get it. I miss him though, always stuttering around my lab and correcting my math. Frowning at me and sighing when I try to go all evil genius. Who's going to stop me now?"

Natasha laughed out loud at that. "Like he ever stopped you, Stark. If anything he was an enabler. Pepper will keep you in line." She paused, then added quietly, "I miss him too though."

They sat in silence for a long time, watching New York flow along beneath their feet.

 **XXX**

Tony wasn't kidding. The compound was up and running in five months. A few areas were still under construction, but for the most part everything had been moved there and the Avengers had taken up residence. Fury, Hill, Cho and a massive team of people had also moved in and the building was in constant bustle. It was a little weird to get used to, but it was nice. A little like being a SHIELD agent again, but this time there were no lies and no secrets. If the Avengers made a decision, they made it together.

Plus her room was way bigger.

For all that he said he was taking a break, packages with new weapons and armour showed up from Tony all the time, and more often than not Tony himself came with them. Claiming to want instant feedback he'd hang around, challenging anyone who'd listen to a spar and talking everyone's ear off.

One day when he'd called to say he was on his way Natasha, Steve and Wanda were all in the gym, working out. Nat warmed up slowly, tapping the mannequin lightly at first and then increasing her speed and power, getting sucked into the rhythm until everything else faded away. Behind her she could half hear Steve describing a move to Wanda as they sparred gently on the open mats.

Nat closed her eyes and continued her onslaught, focusing on breathing as she timed her attacks. She hit the dummy hard in the chest but there wasn't the normal give and she pulled back in surprise, flinging her eyes open again.

"May I cut in?" came Tony's voice – followed by his hand – from behind the dummy.

She chuckled a little, taking his hand to pull him around the dummy. She braced herself for an onslaught, attempting to release his hand to drop into battle-stance, but to her surprise he wouldn't give it up. Spinning her once, he pulled her in close into a ballroom hold instead and began leading her around the mats in a graceful waltz.

Wanda's laugh came from the other side of the room and Tony pointed off towards the sound without turning his head. "No comments from the peanut gallery, little Missy, or you'll be next," he warned, smirking at Natasha who couldn't help but grin back.

"I think Steve wants to go next," Wanda cracked, and Nat heard an "oof" and a slight thud shortly after.

Natasha melted into Tony's hold, following his lead, mirroring every step with careful precision and natural grace.

"You're quite the dancer, Agent Romanoff," Tony said, spinning her gently.

"You're not too bad yourself, Stark."

"Yes, well I'm told women like a man who can dance."

Natasha flashed him a grin. "If only it were the only thing women liked in a man, then you'd be a shoe-in."

Tony fully laughed at that. "I have other good qualities. Some. A few. At least one okay quality. I'm very rich, did you know that?"

Natasha feigned surprise. "Really? No, you've never mentioned it."

"Well, I'm also very mysterious." Tony spun her once more then twisted her into a low dip. So low in fact, that her back touched the floor and he released her, smacking the mat next to her head three times rapidly and popping up in victory pose, arms above his head, hissing through his teeth like a cheering crowd.

Steve and Wanda were both laughing now and Natasha joined in.

"Watch your back, Old Man," she warned, flipping up onto her feet. "If I weren't worried about breaking your hip you'd be on the mat right now."

"Oh really, then I guess you don't want...these?" Tony pulled a bag off the ground and tossed it to her. She pulled it open and found a redesigned version of her batons, sleeker, lighter and better balanced.

She suppressed a smile and gave him a shrug. "I guess I'll let you live this time, Stark." He was already waving her off and bringing bags over to Wanda and Steve.

Nat gave her batons a few swings and then, giving Wanda and Steve a wave and blowing Tony a sarcastic kiss, she left the gym.

She passed Thor talking to Vision and gave him a smile. Thor had been in and out during their move from the tower, spending a lot of time with Jane, but also spending days deep in conversation with Vision. It seemed that whatever his worries were, they had been assuaged as he'd suddenly announced yesterday that he'd be heading back to Asgard for an unknown amount of time, seeking out the other Infinity Stones.

Nat found herself both sad and happy to see him go. Sad because she truly liked the Norse god and happy because there was something about him leaving that felt like peace time to her. He had a way of showing up just for the most chaotic parts of her life and honestly, she could use a break.

She wandered along the halls into a long empty stretch ending in a vast window. She leaned against the cool glass and watched as Tony, Steve, and Thor exited the building. A moment later Thor raised his hammer and disappeared in a flash of lightning. Tony and Steve fell into conversation as they walked along the lawn.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out, turning away from the window. Clint had sent a video message, but there was also an earlier new voicemail from an unknown number. It must have come through while she was working out.

She hit play on the voicemail and when she heard the voice on the other end she nearly dropped her phone, pulling it away from her head to stand for a moment, staring at the screen. Suddenly realizing she was missing the message she scrambled to press play again and pressed it to her ear.

"Uh, hi...Natasha. It's me, um, it's Bruce. Hi. I'm glad I got voicemail because I think if I heard your voice I'd be on the next plane to New York." He chuckled and then there was a long pause. "I wanted to call and, well, to thank you, I guess. It took me a while to figure it out, but I get it now, why you did it. I'm grateful. He's, uhh, he's grateful too. He's been...quiet.

"Anyway, I've been working on some things. And I feel, I feel good. Really good. I just – I didn't want to leave you wondering and you've probably moved on by now and that's fine, that's good. I want you to be happy. If...if you still want..." He paused again and there was the sound of muffled voices, someone speaking Spanish and Bruce responding, too quiet to make out the words. "If you want a running buddy, there might be a day..." Another long pause. "I miss you... Anyway, if it happens, I'll let you know and you can come, or not, whatever you want." There was another pause and a rustle. She waited for the ending beep, but instead he pulled the phone back to his ear and whispered, "Please be careful."

She listened to the message five times and then saved a recording of it to her phone just in case. She didn't bother trying to trace the call, he would have told her if he wanted her to know where he was.

Classically Bruce, the message was more than a little confused, but it gave her hope. Maybe that he'd found a way to calm the Hulk for good, maybe just that he'd learned to trust himself more. At the very least that he had forgiven her. It didn't matter to her what had changed for him, she would have him Big Guy or no, she just desperately hoped that someday he would let her have him.

For now, she could wait.

Her phone pinged again and she suddenly remembered the video from Clint. She pulled her phone out again and pressed play. Little Nathaniel Pietro Barton smiled and gurgled on the screen, she could hear Laura's voice in the background. "Say hi to Auntie Nat!".

She couldn't help but smile. He was amazing. He was healthy, he was here and he had both his parents with him.

He was also fat. What were they feeding the kid?

Fury's voice startled her out of her thoughts. "One of our tech boys flagged this. Splashed down in the Banda Sea. Could be the Quinjet. But with Stark's stealth tech we still can't track the damn thing." He held out a tablet with a map on it and a flashing light.

It wasn't him. She would not be telling Fury about her voicemail. She probably wouldn't be telling anyone about her voicemail. For now she kept her face carefully blank. "Right."

"Probably jumped out and swam to Fiji. He'll send a postcard."

"'Wish you were here,'" she joked to herself. It hadn't quite been what he said, but it was close, and that was close enough for her.

 **XXX**

Natasha, Steve Vision, and Wanda stayed in the Avengers quarters full time, but Sam and Rhodey split their time with D.C. Natasha found herself listening to Bruce's voicemail a few times a week, picturing him safe and happy somewhere. Her StarkPhone automatically alerted her if there were mentions of the Hulk on the internet, but all had been quiet since the turmoil around Sokovia had settled down. She'd told Steve about the message, and Clint eventually, on one of their frequent phone calls, but as time passed it seemed less and less likely that she'd hear from Bruce again.

Wanda had been doing well, integrating with the team and committing diligently to her training, but there was still something missing, something cool and disconnected about the times they were together when she wasn't training. She spent most of her time in her room, studying or watching TV. She joined them for meals or movies every time they asked, but there was still something wrong.

No one expected her to get over her brother's death right away, but she was keeping her grief to herself, appearing completely pulled together and adjusted to everyone around her, falling apart who-knows-how when alone. Natasha knew how dangerous that could be.

Nat had taken to keeping a careful eye on the girl. She was uncomfortable being the one to actually talk to her, Steve was much better at that, but she watched her.

One night while the rest of the team was investigating a potentially Bucky-related disturbance in Scotland she was about to head to bed when she noticed one of the doors to the practice rooms was open and a red light was coming out from inside. Peering around the door frame she saw Wanda, leaning with her back against the wall of the gym, the room full of the glow from her magic.

Everything in the room was floating off the floor, spinning slowly around in circles. Wanda was staring blankly across towards the opposite wall, tracks from tears glistening on her cheeks, her hands limp on the floor, but her fingers curled in as she controlled the contents of the room in their eerie dance.

Natasha stepped inside slowly and the moment Wanda's attention flicked to her everything was suddenly released and hit the ground with a crash. Wanda just watched her approach and said nothing as the assassin leaned against the wall to slide down next to her. The red energy was still crackling around Wanda's hands, but she didn't seem to notice.

They sat in silence for a while and then Natasha started to speak carefully. "I'm not very good at the talking thing, I'm told I come off as cold so I'm sorry, I'm sure I'm not the person you wish was here right now. But I know some people who are good at those kind of things so I'll just tell you what they told me.

"I know this is horrible and scary and heartbreaking and sometimes you're so angry you just want to break everything. And that's okay. I know what that's like and most of the time you just have to live through it. It's horrible and unfair, but that's life.

"There's something I want you to remember, though, when things get horrible. If you have to cry, if you have to scream, or even break everything in the gym, that's okay. Tony can always buy new things." A ghost of a smile flitted across Wanda's face and Natasha pressed on. "If you have to sit here by yourself all night and hate everything that's all fine. But there's one thing that it's vital that you remember no matter what."

Natasha reached into a pocket on her belt and pulled out a small piece of fabric and handed it to the girl. Wanda took it and flipped it over. It was a patch, just like the ones Steve and Natasha had sewn to their tac suits – a stylized Avengers "A".

"You're not alone."

Wanda didn't say anything but two tears fell from her cheeks to her hands and she gripped the little patch until her knuckles were white. Nat put her arm around the girl's shoulders and they just sat silently in the dark, together.

Over the next few weeks Nat saw Wanda open up more and more to the team. She spent more of her time in the common areas and to everyone's surprise it was Vision that she took to the most. They talked, played chess together and developed new battle strategies using their unique powers.

The other surprise was how much the Little Guy took to being the Avengers cat. Tony had kindly built in little kitty tunnels and hidey-holes all over the compound. More often than not the no-longer-a-kitten could be found snoozing on someone's desk in R&D or causing a ruckus in the gym. When they inevitably got frustrated and shooed him into the Avengers-only section he and Wanda spent a lot of time together. She would talk to him in her native tongue and use her powers to bat his toys around to his great amusement.

At the end of the day, though he could still be found curled up in the bottom drawer of Natasha's dresser, or sprawled out on her bed purring, waiting for a chin rub.

The next few months flew by in a haze of training, missions and their odd little form of domestic life.

After returning from a particularly exhausting solo trip to Germany Natasha wandered into Steve's room to find him spread on his bed on his back, shoes kicked off and one hand slipped down next to his head, the book he'd been holding lying fully across his face. His breathing was slow and even. She collapsed into the chair by his desk and tapped the sole of one of his feet with hers.

"Are you sleeping?" she stage-whispered.

"Well, I was," he answered carefully, not moving.

"What are you doing now?"

"Hoping desperately that you'll go away," he quipped.

Natasha laughed and he pulled the book off his face to smile drowsily at her.

"How was Germany?" he asked.

"Awful." She grimaced. "An utter waste of time."

Steve gave her a sympathetic look. "Sorry."

She just shrugged. "Just glad to be back. Any gossip while I was gone?"

He sat up on the edge of the bed facing her and stretched. "Uh, yeah actually. Selvig blew up the east wing lab."

"Again?"

"Same wing, different lab."

"He needs a babysitter." Natasha shook her head.

Steve smirked at her. "You volunteering?"

"Good God, no."

They both laughed and Steve opened his mouth to tell her what else they had all been up to during her absence.

And then her watch went off.

For a second she hung, frozen in time, watching the display light up with his location, disbelief all over her face. She looked up and met Steve's eyes, not knowing what to say. He didn't even hesitate.

"Go."

Her feet barely hit the ground, she just took off, running.


	10. Epilogue

**Epilogue:**

"Hey, Doc."

The air was hot and the thin fabric of his linen shirt clung to his sides with sweat. The sweet hum of insects surrounded them, a welcome change to the hum of cars and machinery. Bruce's body stilled at her voice, but he stayed facing away. The twisting and clenching of his hands in the cloth he held was the only indication of his sudden tension.

"You came," he said, too carefully, and hot anxiety flooded Natasha's stomach. What if he hadn't meant it? What if it was a mistake, a test, something else? Even a trick or a trap? She hadn't thought, she had just run to him. She thought she would probably always run to him, whether he wanted her to or not.

"You push it, I come," she stated flatly, letting him lead what would come next.

Finally, slowly, he turned to face her. His warm, brown eyes, filled with wonder and astonishment, pushed a breath out of her she didn't realize she had been holding. With the harsh sound of her exhalation he suddenly crumpled, sitting heavily on the edge of the table behind him and ducking his head. She took two steps forward, still giving him space, but close enough that she could reach out and press her palm to his cheek if she thought he would let her.

"Well, I panicked," he gave a little shrug and quirked that little half smile at her that she had missed so much – the one that was half-humor and half-apology. He was always apologizing.

She smiled back. "What did you panic about?"

He didn't answer, just looked at her gently, taking in the curve of her face, frowning at the harsh red line peeking out from the collar of her shirt where Sam had caught her with a wing in training just a few days ago. It felt a million miles away.

She took in the new lines on his face, new streaks of grey in his perpetually rumpled hair. He looked older, but also, somehow, freer. There was something gone now, settled. He looked tired, but at peace.

"I missed you," he finally muttered out and she found the strength to reach out and slip her fingers over his hand where it rested on his leg.

"Me too."

His hand clenched around hers and for a long moment they just stared at each other. There was no tension or awkwardness, just 8 months of that dull ache of missing each other to banish.

Eventually Bruce gave an uncomfortable cough, tightening his grip on her fingers, he stood so they were face to face and spoke quietly. "I know I said we could...run...together, but I -ah- hmmm." Natasha smiled encouragingly and waited for him to continue. "I'm trying something a little new here."

"What are you trying?" she asked gently.

"I'm trying...staying."

"You tried that once before. I remember." She quirked her flirty smile at him. "I was there."

"I know. I, uh, I like you there. When I...when I stay."

"Are you asking me to stay here with you Bruce?"

"Uh, yeah, you know, this is, if you want..?"

She couldn't help but laugh, a real full laugh and he startled, but she couldn't stop. She'd just flown 4,000 miles in a heartbeat to be with a man she'd only kissed once and he thought she might not want to stay.

"Yes," she finally said, smiling sweetly, eyes alight with laughter. "I'll stay. With you. If staying's a plan, as long as you like."

He finally smiled back, his eyes crinkling, leaning deep into her space until there were only inches between them. "Will they need us back?" he asked.

"Maybe. Probably," she answered truthfully. "You don't have to go, if they do."

"I will. If they need me." His answer was simple and honest. "But for now..."

"Now, we stay."

His lips finally pressed against hers and she tipped up to meet them. This kiss was different. There was still an urgency born of waiting and anticipation, but without the pressure of death, without inevitable loss hanging over them they were able to find a sweetness and a softness for the first time. She thought back to Darcy's wisdom spoken so long ago and had a fleeting hope that after their first apocalypse-induced kiss, they too had found a place of peace.

 **XXX**

Natasha drifted into consciousness, half-aware of an electronic buzzing by her head. The buzzing didn't sound again, however, so she let herself float in that place in between sleep and awake. Bruce's comforting shape lay next to her, his deep, slow breaths luring her back into sleep.

The room was hot, a lone fan barely making a dent in the sweat that clung to their bodies, but it was also fresh, the open window to her left bringing in the smell of dirt and summer rain. Six weeks had passed without notice or acknowledgment from either. They spent their time together, or helping in the village. Bruce traded medical support for food and lodging and Nat did what she could, when she could, but mostly, she was just with Bruce.

The only thing that connected her back to the Avengers was the small flip phone she kept on her at all times. It could only receive messages from one other phone, but it could do so anywhere in the world. It had appeared in a beat-up package with no fewer than eleven re-routing stickers stuck to it, four days after she had found Bruce.

Knowing Steve he hadn't told anyone else where she had gone and she was grateful for that. A slip of paper was caught between the top and bottom of the phone and it had fallen out when she opened the otherwise empty envelope.

 _"_ _ _Take a vacation. -S"__ was all it had said.

Six weeks had passed and the only thing that had come through on the phone were two pictures – one of the Little Guy, fast asleep and curled up inside War Machine's helmet, and one of the whole team (sans Steve who was presumably holding the camera) battle-weary and dirty, but alive and well after a touch-and-go mission. The news of the explosion in Amsterdam and the Avengers' involvement had made it all the way to their secluded corner of the world and Natasha was grateful to Steve for letting her know that everyone, even her kitten, was doing okay.

Despite the lack of contact Nat kept the phone on her at all times, just in case. The only way she could justify being away from the tower, leaving everything to Steve, was knowing that if they needed her, all they had to do was ask.

She sighed as she came fully awake, registering what had snapped her out of sleep in the first place. She half sat up and picked up the phone, flipping it open.

There was one message flashing on the screen and this time it was different. She didn't realize she was holding her breath until she opened it and deflated with relief. There was an image of a plane ticket attached to the text and no message.

But just one plane ticket – and it had __her__ name on it.

Bruce rolled over and tucked his face into her neck, giving her a soft kiss and earning a smile in return.

"Steve?" he asked.

"Yeah." She flipped the phone shut, burrowing into Bruce's arms and breathing in the scent of him. She knew he could hear it in her voice that this time it wasn't a cute cat picture. She didn't know how long it would be this time before they saw each other again.

"Where are we going?" he asked, a slight waver in his voice revealing his tension, even though his arms were soft around her, his heartbeat calm.

"Just me," she replied, and almost imperceptibly some of the tension eased away. Not all of it, but some.

Bruce bent forward and kissed the top of her head, holding her tight. "Okay, where are you going?"

Nat hadn't had a lot of peaceful moments in her life, but if she could use one word to describe the last six weeks, it would be that. And maybe that's all they would get – six peaceful weeks, once a year, maybe less. But she would keep coming back, back to wherever he wanted to stay next, keep hoping that the messages that sucked her into violence and fear and death would only have one ticket attached.

She had three hours of peace left before she had to head out and she was going to make them count. Pressing her lips against his she slipped her arms around his back, running her fingernails along the skin she found there until he hummed with pleasure.

"Lagos," she answered against his lips, tossing the phone aside and rolling them over with a brilliant smile.

You could do a lot with three hours of peace.

* * *

You made it to the end! Thank you so much for reading!


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